The Question of Morality in the
Context of Faith and Reason:
Conceptualizing a Missing Essence
by
Dan Marshall
B.A., Simon Fraser University, 1995
Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
in the
Graduate Liberal Studies Program
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Dan Marshall 2016 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
Summer 2016
ii
Approval
Name: Dan Marshall
Degree: Master of Arts
Title: The Question of Morality in the Context of Faith and Reason: Conceptualizing A Missing Essence.
Examining Committee: Chair: Stephen Duguid Professor, Dept. of Humanities and Graduate Liberal Studies Program
Heesoon Bai Senior Supervisor Professor Faculty of Education
Jerry Zaslove Supervisor Professor Emeritus Department of Humanities and Department of English
Ann Chinnery External Examiner Associate Professor Faculty of Education Simon Fraser University
Date Defended/Approved: July 14, 2016
iii
Abstract
This project explores the proposition that at present humanity is faced with a crisis of
moral consciousness due to the weakening of faith in theocentric world views. Secular
reason has failed to replace religion as a primary source of moral authority. The failures
of faith, reason, and codified human rights to provide universal moral authority and
guidance create a unique historical transitional moment and opportunity for a revision of
secular reason as a source of a universalising moral guidance. A set of fundamental
moral principles for individual responsibility has been developed, placing the locus of
moral deliberation and responsible action for moral agency within individuals. The
project examines several moral exemplars that both illustrate and test the moral
principles for their viability and efficacy. Future prospects for the model are discussed.
Keywords: ethics and morality; moral principles; faith; reason; moral agency; individual
moral responsibility; moral exemplars
iv
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge and give special thanks to Dr. Heesoon Bai and Dr. Jerry
Zaslove whose patience, interest, contributions, and help and support contributed
immeasurably to my work on this project. It has been a great pleasure to work with them.
I would also like to acknowledge my Professors: Stephen Duguid with whom I studied
Rousseau before coming to the Graduate Liberal Studies (GLS) program and who
introduced me to GLS, and who also shared the articles of Habermas and Taylor with
me; Michael Kenny, Robin Barrow, and Eleanor Stebner all of whose courses
contributed to a breadth of knowledge that allowed me to make the connections to
attempt this work.
Many thanks to all the people in my cohort and the GLS program who contributed
directly through their challenging ideas and perspectives, or indirectly by making my time
and participation in GLS enjoyable and for becoming part of my life and memories.
I would like to thank Dr. Eleanor Stebner and everyone involved for the 2014 Peace and
the Environment Symposium, and for the opportunity to meet Professor Finney. Thanks
also to Dr. Stebner whose course Liberty and Authority that I found so compelling, and
our shared interest in Peace and Nobel Peace Laureates that are reflected in this work.
Thanks to Professor John Finney who so graciously shared his personal knowledge, and
also his time and willingness to offer assistance and contacts of people who also shared
their personal knowledge and experience of Dr. Rotblat. I am grateful to them all.
I would also like to thank Dr. Janet Giltrow for graciously sharing her time to meet with
me so long ago and to read the Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities with
me, and for her suggestion that all documents be reviewed as needed.
Special thanks also to my friend Helene Tordjman whom I enjoyed so many discussions
with during the course of my studies, and whose personal experiences, questions and
insights about what I was learning and thinking added much to my experience.
v
Table of Contents
Approval .......................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ v
Prologue ……………………………………………………………………........…..........…….1
Chapter 1. Morality in a Post-Secular Age ................................................................ 5 Failure of Morality (A Brief Synopsis) ......................................................... 8 Human Rights - Universal Declaration of Human Rights .......................... 16
Chapter 2. Morality as Universal Fundamental Principles .................................... 21 Universal Declaration of Human Responsibities ...................................... 29
Chapter 3. Testing Moral Principles ........................................................................ 41 Moral Exemplars...................................................................................... 41 Positive Exemplars .................................................................................. 42 Negative Exemplars ................................................................................ 60 Summary Discussion of Exemplars ......................................................... 77 Discussion of Viability .............................................................................. 80
Epilogue ...... ……………………………………………………………………........…..........88 Transitions ............................................................................................................ 88 Future Research and Interests ............................................................................. 90
References... ................................................................................................................ 93
Works Read ……………………………………………………………………........….........102
1
Prologue
I have inherited and lived with the legacy of a history with humanly caused
suffering in the form of the evils of the abuses of people, other species, and the
environment. Knowledge of wars, poverty, poor human relations, self-destructiveness,
and conflict and violence justified by any motives pervaded our awareness. In my
lifetime our consciousness was greatly dominated by the atrocities, ethnocides and
genocides of World War II, and the later war in Vietnam of the 1960’s and 1970’s era.
During this period, too, we knew the Cold War and the terrible threat of annihilation from
nuclear weapons. This remains a threat in current times - perhaps more acutely so.
From an early age after being assigned a topic of War in elementary school for a report,
I chose to interview people who had seen war, and to focus on humour in the war.
Through having people share their personal stories of humour amid devastation, it was
clear from their individual accounts, their pain, and their confidences that war was
inglorious and unlike how the media presented it. Since then, I have had an interest in
peace, and in how morality is essential to peace as intrinsic to it, and to this day compels
my interest in it.
Despite the many people who live morally and well, each new day global news
media report an abundance of every kind of moral failing, human misery, and threats to
humanity. Humanity has a natural urge to survive and to thrive, yet in contrast, people
engage in behaviours that frustrate living contentedly and peaceably, and attaining the
highest thrusts of life. It is incomprehensible that with thousands of years of advances in
knowledge, technological thought and achievement, and scholarship, that little change
2
seems to have occurred away from the sources of moral authority of theocentricism and
reason that have afforded only limited success in the formation and maintenance of civil
societies, and more peaceful and fruitful lives. Several questions arise: Can we assume
there are no solutions to these sufferings? Can we conceive of an understanding of
morality and ways of living that aid in attaining another kind of existence that is more
peaceful and hence more desirable? These are difficult questions, and the subject of
morality and ethics is at once complex, deep, broad, and challenging.
Throughout life I have also been dissatisfied with much of the status quo of
“accepted” beliefs and practices. For example, the notion that there are different races of
people is one that must be denied among many notions that are wrong and may harm
people. Denying this notion for the most part met with either outright dogmatic rejection,
or strong opposition to the views that it was and is simply wrong. Reasoned or logical
arguments typically failed to sway people, and their often impassioned arguments
seemed never to have any substance. But what was wrong?
It is the theme of the relation between reason and passion that is the focus of the
GLS program. In coming to GLS and engaging the Great Texts of humanity, I was
impressed with the fact that they serve as diagnoses of the human condition. They
provide a "trace path" of human consciousness, and the slow and soft evolution of mind
toward betterment. Through a sort-of peeling away the layers of a palimpsest we attempt
to recognize and understand the very essence of human good, and to attempt to
understand why it is so long in being revealed in ways that are widely known to people.
The study of the Great Texts provided a breadth and depth of historical knowledge that
was necessary to provide a context in which to attempt to articulate my long-held
3
assumptions and notions. The GLS program afforded an “overview” of the human
condition from which to attempt to articulate intangibles of human nature and existence
as expressed in the texts. Each of the courses permitted me to advance my knowledge,
and provided connections and a continuity of related pre-existing notions, recurring
themes and adaptations, and new ideas permitting the opportunity to attempt this work.
This project comprises three chapters, each of which examines and develops an
aspect of morality, and proposes alternative conceptions beyond the postsecular age:
Chapter 1: Morality in a Post-secular Age contextualizes this project in postmodernist
and post-secular discourse and discusses failures of moral codes. It begins with a brief
history of our dominant moral codes, and responds to the view that morality from
theocentric sources has declined and secular reason failed to replace it. Notions of civil
and human rights are examined as transitional forms, and as what were intended as
reactions to, and as alternatives to authoritative and totalitarian sources of morality in
20th Century moral discourses. One cause of the failure of secular reason is tentatively
identified and a solution is proposed.
Chapter 2: Morality as Universal Fundamental Principles proposes a conception
of moral principles that is intended to serve as foundational principles of morality that
informs a universal morality that is internally consistent, and anticipates the deficits of
existing moral systems by placing the locus of moral thought within individuals. The
proposed set of moral principles draws upon and draws together the works of Friedrich
Nietzsche, Frans de Waal, and Albert Einstein in order to construct a useful moral
concept. A universalising secular morality is advanced by this conception that
emphasizes the necessity for people to become proactive moral agents, and impels
4
responsibility for moral deliberation and ethical action in a self-reflective way that does
not rely on external authority. A set of guidelines is proposed that is intended to inform
and enable people to become self-responsible in conjunction with the proposed moral
principles and to inculcate an internal locus of moral authority, and to provide concrete
examples of how responsibility may be understood in the context of a universal morality.
Chapter 3: Moral Exemplars is an examination of a sample of individuals for the
presence or absence of the proposed moral principles combined with the notion of
personal responsibility to test whether the proposed conception is viable. Available
empirical evidence in the form of biographical or autobiographical writings is examined in
order to assess whether positive moral exemplars possess and have exercised the
principles and responsibility suggested. Negative exemplars are examined to determine
whether the proposed conceptions were functional for those exemplars, or absent.
Criteria for the success or lack thereof for each category is articulated and discussed.
Discussion of Viability examines the results of the comparisons and contrasts between
exemplars, and investigates whether the proposed model is viable. The chapter closes
with reflections of issues raised in the work, and conclusions about some of the future
challenges to, and prospects for the proposed conception of secular morality.
Epilogue: Transitions provides a discussion of ways and means to advocate the
proposed conception(s) of morality and integrated personal responsibility. I explore
methods of training, schooling, education, and public exposure at local levels, and at
global universalising scales through World Wide Web publication. Future Research and
Interests are discussed and will refer to the ongoing project of investigating the human
condition and possible directions.
5
Chapter 1: Morality in a Post-secular Age
Chapter Summary: This chapter responds to and affirms the premises of the argument
that something is missing for secular reason and by extension, both from and for
theocentric morality. It examines notions of rights for their premises and efficacy, and
suggests a conception of moral principles that universalises to all people independent of
theocentric moral authority. A conception of human responsibilities that supports the
moral principles and works in conjunction with them is proposed.
Morality in a Post-secular Age
If we assume a higher level of species intelligence, it is difficult to understand or
explain the longevity of human conduct that is deemed problematic or immoral from the
evidence that we have not yet understood or solved the difficulties that our conceptions
of morality are intended to address. Prevailing moral codes are arguably problematic in
the context of failing to fulfil their stated aims. For example, generally there are the
arbitrary and relativistic moral prescriptions regulating human behaviour conferred by
varying theocentric belief systems (e.g., Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam.)
There are perversions of religious moral codes through which we see acts of
violence or killing arbitrarily committed in the name of God or on the beliefs in divine
command theory variously manifest as sectarian conflicts within religious groups, or
between followers of different faiths. Here a contradiction is either that the “divine” texts
6
are not consistent, cannot necessarily be understood (relating to content, language or
literacy constraints), cannot be followed, are not divine, or are simply not followed; hence
bringing their moral integrity, veridicality and absolute authority into question.
There is the necessity of secular “legal morality” in most nations prescribed as
criminal laws to protect people from the transgressions of others, and to restrain or
punish transgressors. We have the persistence of a vast range of immoral, e.g., cruel,
destructive, violent behaviours, and the abandonment of moral conduct despite having
moral codes to adhere to and follow. In the case of theocentric morality or secular legal
morality both rely on external sources of control and enforcement. As such they are
authority based and authoritarian, typified as “top-down” models that both instruct and
compel people to belief, compliance, and action.
Problems can arise when people may not either know or understand all the
codes, or they have literalist interpretations of religious texts that may result in conflicting
sectarian religious codes, or religious and secular codes coming into conflict. Or, people
may be inhibited in acting morally if the codes conflict with their own ideas or intuitions
and they feel that their “right” moral notions contradict the authoritarian models whether
they actually are right (just) or not. Moreover, if people are compelled to be reliant for
moral instruction or knowledge from external loci, and they do not have texts or people
to refer to when they are alone or are in need of moral knowledge, (or no imperatives
exist) they may have no means by which to discern for themselves what is moral or what
ethical actions to take. This suggests a need for a conception of an internally consistent
internal universal morality that people can query self-referentially to make decisions
autonomously, and to act on their own responsibility.
7
In examining contemporary philosophical discourses and with supporting
evidence from research included in this work, and with the decline of theocentrism which
is argued to have failed as a source of moral authority, along with the failure of secular
reason and notions of human rights to provide adequate moral models or codes, I have
come to the conclusion that humanity is at a transitional moment and epoch in history.
When existing normative models of moralities that purport to inform and guide people on
how to live well and flourish in ways that affirm life and reduce human suffering fail to
fulfil their intended aims - something must change, or something new must emerge in
human consciousness if humanity is to progress and improve its moral standing. I take
as evidence that people recognize, since moral codes and notions of rights exist, that
there is a better way to exist. Otherwise, we would assume our state is normal in the
sense of it being usual, and therefore inevitable; this is unacceptable defeatism.
The question arises, however: Can we respond to the needs of humanity in a
changing moral “landscape” in the 21st Century? I will argue that we can respond in
positive ways that both recognize and use our history, and understand how we can
progress toward a more humane consciousness. Our intellectual and psychological
heritage is one of progression both away from conceptions of existence that legitimized
the abrogation and abnegation of the dignity and decency of people and the destruction
of life, toward an emerging consciousness of the intrinsic value of representing more
peaceful and humane human values that slowly come to fruition. Examples of this are
the realization of the full fundamental value of women, the awareness and inclusion of
minorities, the reduction of notions of “race” and inequality, and the advancements of
science and philosophy that enhance life in medicine and other areas of human
endeavour to name a few.
8
In this project I refer to the works of contemporary philosopher Jürgen Habermas
et al., to situate my ideas in a contemporary discourse that relates to morality. I respond
to the concerns expressed that with the weakening of theocentric morality and the failure
of secular reason to replace theocentric worldviews, that there is a missing essence for
secular reason, and for humanity. I acknowledge and agree with Habermas’ position that
something is missing for reason. Beyond this Habermas’ discourse is examined to
facilitate a divergent position on his reasons for the failure of secular reason, and to
essay an alternative notion of why reason failed. From that, I attempt to build a case for
a workable alternative of a conception of a universalising morality conjoined to reason as
a new paradigm of morality grounded in secular reason.
Failure of Morality (A Brief Synopsis)
Let us start with antiquity. In antiquity as populations increased and began
forming cultures and civilizations, they needed to know the parameters of acceptable
behaviour. They also importantly needed a consensus as to what was unacceptable
behaviour, and how the individual can be prevented or restricted from wrongdoing. In the
era approximately 1000 – 500 BCE the Bible Genesis story emerged (The Old
Testament Hebrew Bible: First book of Moses, Genesis 1)1 as a foundational text of the
Abrahamic religions.2 The Genesis story relates a notion of a monotheistic God that
creates the universe and humanity. In this narrative morality is conferred and explicated
1 The Bible: Authorized King James Version. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Genesis. 3.1
2 The Abrahamic religions are those relating to Abraham, emerging from proto-Judaic traditions and which include Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as three major world religions. Breasted, James Henry. Ancient Time or a History of the Early World, Part 1. (Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing. 2003) 141.
9
through Mosaic Law in the Bible from God, in which imperatives of right actions and
conceptions and descriptions of sin form moral laws as determinants of wrong thought
and action.3
A single God was considered to be the absolute moral authority governing
human morality, and hence is authoritative and absolute in nature. This theocentric
construct has persisted as the traditional and predominant source of morality until the
early 20th Century. In contemporary times, however, this traditional source of morality
and institutional and social means of maintaining moral conduct is seen as weakening.
As evidence it is noted that more laws,4 more codes, more notions of rights, more
surveillance, more enforcement and more punishments by any method are failing to
moderate human conduct in ways that are implicit in their ethical and moral intentions of
maintaining or engendering morality and ethical action. Failures are evidenced as high
rates of crime5 per capita in populations,6 extensive social problems with greater
complexity,7 and high rates of domestic and international violence as conflicts and wars.8
The 2016 Global Peace Index (GPI)9 shows the world became less peaceful in the last
year, reinforcing the underlying trend of the historic decline in world peace.
3 The first use of the word ‘sin’ as referent to morality is in Genesis. The Bible, Ibid. Gen. 4:6.
4 Includes religious and secular laws, as well as considers the necessity of both to adapt to scientific and technological change which results in challenges to cultural adaptation and assimilation of novel contingencies.
5 U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Crime in the United States 2012. https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1
6 Government of Canada. Statistics Canada. Crime and Justice. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dai-quo/ssi/homepage/rel-com/theme2693-eng.htm
7 Ciment, James. ed. Table of contents for Social issues in America: An encyclopedia. http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0516/2005018778.html
8 United Nations. United Nations Global Issues. 2016. http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/
9 Of 162 countries indexed, only 10 are not involved in conflict. Institute for Economics and Peace. Global Peace Index. 2016. http://www.visionofhumanity.org/#/page/our-gpi-findings
10
Depending on which research and statistics are employed, whether it is the case
that problems with moral dimensions are not on the rise, but are under-reported or
unreported, remain stable, or are in nominal decline, the fact remains that we have
evidence of a vast amount of humanly caused misery and suffering that our moral codes
have not succeeded in preventing, mitigating, or resolving. These failures are seen in the
inability of the institutions of church or state (faith or reason) to cope with problems, let
alone control, cure, or stop them. Thus, morality that is extrinsic and is authoritarian in
nature and imposed from an external locus is recognized to have failed substantively.
Fast forward, and in recognition of the moral problems, we come into the late
20th Century philosophical and ethical discourses that seek to investigate moral
concerns. Postmodernist theory is a diffuse movement that is claimed to generally argue
for scepticism and distrust toward grand narratives, ideologies, enlightenment rationality,
and absolute truth.10 Theocentric worldviews and theocentric morality are argued to
have lost their impetus during the postmodern era, showing a decline in numbers of
people declaring religious beliefs or affiliations in western populations.11 Charles Taylor,
in his work A Secular Age queries the decline in theocentrism and affirms the change
stating: “One way to put the question that I want to answer here is this: why was it
virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society, while in
2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable?”12 The decline in
10
Aylesworth, Gary, "Postmodernism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta ed. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/postmodernism/
11 Pew Research Center. “US Public Becoming Less Religious” Global Attitudes and Trends. 2015. Washington DC. Published 2015/11/03. http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/
12 Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 2007) 27.
11
theocentric/metaphysical beliefs and their force of moral authority derived from God may
be argued in part to be attributable to the many contradictions evident in the Bible. For
one example, it is problematic to be instructed that God states “Thou Shalt not Kill” and
then to find instances in the Bible13 where God explicitly instructs people to kill.14 Further,
the catastrophic events of the early 20th Century of World War I and II, and the economic
depression of the era 1929-1939 appears to have resulted in the questioning and
diminution of faith and adherence to theocentric worldviews when morality failed the
greater populations during those times. These disruptions may arguably have given rise
to postmodernism as a reaction to, or as an expression of the changes in awareness.
In the postmodernist era, with the tendency of postmodernist theorists to regard
grand narratives with scepticism through the process of interrogating theocentric moral
codes we see the inconsistencies embedded in the (moral) imperatives. This likely led to
the weakening of their authority owing to their being recognized as unstable, unreliable,
and corruptible. That is, conflicting moral imperatives cannot lead to definitive objective
moral guidance which is what the authoritative code(s) intended. With these types of
contradictions exposed, and with an evolving desire for moral guidance that is internally
consistent and reliable, secular humanists and postmodernist theorists argued that
secular reason would replace theocentric morality as a more integrally reasoned
humanism. However, it is widely acknowledged that secular reason did not replace
theocentric views, leading to a querying of reason to discover why reason failed.
13
The Bible, Ibid. 1 Samuel 15:3. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
14 It is beyond the scope of this work, however, most; if not all, religious texts show evidence of such irreconcilable contradictions.
12
Jürgen Habermas, in An Awareness of What Is Missing: Faith and Reason in a
Post-Secular Age argues that something is missing for humanity. For Habermas the
question is specifically to ask what is missing for secular reason in that it was assumed
to replace religions as a source of morality, but he acknowledges this has failed to occur.
He argues that “what is missing” for secular reason is the symbols and images that
religion has and which serve as a basis of attachment, or of solidarity. Habermas states:
Practical reason provides justifications for the universalistic and
egalitarian concept of morality and law which shaped the freedom of the
individual and interpersonal relations in a normatively plausible way.
However, the decision to engage in action based on solidarity when faced
with threats which can be averted only by collective efforts calls for more
than insights into good reasons. Kant wanted to make good this
weakness of rational morality through the assurances of his philosophy of
religion. However, this same strict rational morality explains why
enlightened reason unavoidably loses its grip on the images, preserved
by religion, of the moral whole - of the kingdom of God on earth - as
collectively binding ideals. At the same time practical reason fails to fulfill
its own vocation when it no longer has sufficient strength to awaken, and
to keep awake, in the minds of secular subjects, an awareness of the
violations of solidarity throughout the world, an awareness of what is
missing, of what cries out to heaven.15
Habermas’ argument that something is missing is compelling; however, the notion that
symbols and images preserved by religion of the moral whole are what will suffice for a
collectively binding ideal and moral bearing does not address the concerns about, and
the need to have a universalising secular basis for morality that can bind people together
15
Habermas, Jürgen, et al. An Awareness of What Is Missing. Faith and Reason in a Post-Secular Age. trans. Cronin, Ciaran. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010.)18-19.
13
in their common humanity. Variants of religions share similar characteristics (of beliefs,
obeisance to a preternatural or metaphysical being, rituals, etc.), but they do not share
the same images, symbols, or other ideals or practices that often see people of different
religions come into conflict when they are in proximity to each other or, with secular state
institutions. Habermas later recognizes this and other problems in the post-secular era:
This touches on conflicts which are currently being triggered around the
world by the unexpected spiritual renewal and by the unsettling political
role of evangelical and fundamentalist religious communities. Apart from
Hindu Nationalism, Islam and Christianity are the main sources of this
disturbance. From the standpoint of their geographical expansion, the
winners are not the nationally organized religious communities, such as
the Protestant Churches in Germany and Britain, but the Catholic world
Church and, above all, the Evangelicals and the Muslims with their
decentralized networks and globally operating movements. . . . The
resurgence is going hand-in-hand with an increase of the conflicts
between different religious groups and denominations. Even though many
of these conflicts have different origins, they become inflamed when they
are codified in religions terms.16
Here Habermas cites the unexpected renewal of religions, which raises the question as
to why this might occur, which he does not discuss.17 One possible explanation is to
speculate that with theocentrism on the wane and with secular reason failing to replace
it, that what has occurred (but there is no empirical evidence to support) is that when
populations are faced with a loss of beliefs that provide homeostasis, they need
16
Habermas, Ibid., 19. 17
There are questions as to what is meant by “spiritual” and what is meant by “religious” with there being significant differences in understandings and practices. Bender, Courtney. “Religion and Spirituality: History, Discourse, Measurement.” Social Science Research Council. Jan 24, 2007. http://religion.ssrc.org/reforum/Bender.pdf
14
something to replace them. In this case, secular reason was expected to be what people
could transition to but it was insubstantial – missing something. Stasis can become
threatened when there is a significant loss of the familiar, and there is nothing to replace
it giving rise to strong reactions evidenced as fundamentalism and evangelism. If there is
fear and uncertainty, or fear of uncertainty, and people are threatened or cannot
formulate or transition to new directions that can provide stasis, they are unlikely
abandon the known or to risk the unknown.
Therefore, it may be that with the failure of secular reason the instability caused
by a vacuum of stasis has given rise to the resurgence of religiosity as a return to the
known and familiar. Moreover, it may be that religious resurgence, if it exists, is in part
owing to the upheavals caused by conflicts that see people displaced from their
homelands and roots. This is symptomatic of the failures of both theocentric morality and
secular morality that conflicts persist to create these conditions. Another question is
about whether there is actually a resurgence of religion as Habermas claims (he does
not cite sources) or whether what is taken for resurgence is partially explained by
population growth and the rise of religion(s) by volume rather than only as revivalism.18
A correlative and important concern is that with increasing populations and
migration owing to global conflicts and economic factors combined with the politicization
of religion(s) - that nations and governments are undergoing radical transformations as
competing interests intensify, and conflicts increase as varying groups intersect and
attempt to assert dominance. Moreover, various religions hold differing moral
18 Pew Research Center. “The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-
2050” Demographic Study. 2015. Washington DC. Published 2015/04/03. http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
15
conceptions, hence challenging the capacities of people of varying religions to find
common moral standings and reduce conflicts. The problem of moral relativism is stated
“that there are deep and widespread moral disagreements and a metaethical thesis that
the truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to some group of
persons.”19 What this means is that moral conceptions are not anchored in a single
unifying conception that universalises to all people in an increasingly globalized world.
In view of the fact that there are no images or symbols common to religions,
images and symbols therefore cannot provide a unifying ideal that can motivate
collective action that would lend support to secular reason as Habermas claims. This
means Habermas’ notion of conjoining the images and symbols of religion(s) as “the
kingdom of God” 20 to secular reason is arguably a searching attempt to enhance reason
as a unifying and universalising basis for morality that can mobilize to meet threats in the
post post-secular era.21 This does not address the concern that the transition to secular
reason seeks to eliminate threats from any quarter entirely. This is noted since, as
Habermas points out, the prescient threats often come from or through religions in the
first instance. These manifold factors contribute to understanding the failures of both
theocentrism, and for the artefacts of religion to complete and support secular reason.
With the failure of religions to retain their grip as a source of moral authority22 in
response to historical eventualities and contemporary concerns, and without secular 19
Gowans, Chris, "Moral Relativism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta ed. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/moral-relativism
20 Habermas, Ibid. 19.
21 Post postsecular is a term used that refers to the transition from the postsecular age in which secular reason did not take hold and there was a resurgence of religions, and as a term to refer the next age which may be called something different but is not at this time.
22 Resurgence or population growth does not equate to retained authority or moral ascendancy.
16
reason having been established as an independent, self-referential, internally consistent,
coherent, and non-authoritarian source of morality that eliminates threats while
concomitantly supporting life – there is a missing essence to be discovered.
Human Rights – Universal Declaration of Human Rights
In the mid-20th Century another transition away from traditional authoritative
moral codes came in the form of the creation of notions of civil and human rights.
Codified human rights are arguably our best moral codes insofar as that they tend to be
proactive in affirming and supporting fundamentals of human existence (survival) and
positive intrinsic human value. Human rights are typified and termed as “natural rights,”
rights that we are argued to possess merely by the fact of being alive. As a pre-eminent
manifesto of human rights, The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR) 23 is a secularized expression of the urge of humanity to seek alternative ways to
view itself, and to create an alternate conception of morality through recognizing and
asserting the fundamental natural value and dignity of all people exquisitely.24
The failure of both theocentric and secular morality was evidenced as World
Wars I and II in which the extreme violence of totalitarianism occurred. The UDHR
emerged as a reaction to the degradation of humanity and the evidence of the failure of
theocentric morality to prevail or to intervene that led to the creation of a supranational
governing body that was initially called the League of Nations, which is now called the
23 United Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
24 United Nations. What are Human Rights? Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/WhatareHumanRights.aspx
17
United Nations (U.N.). 25 The UDHR as an instrument of the United Nations is arguably
the best moral code for its conceptual universalising notions in asserting, “. . . the
recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members
of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” 26
As an example of a 20th Century transitional and transformational moral ideal, Jay
Winter, in his work Human Rights and European Remembrance notes that Eastern and
Western European societies attempted to embrace emerging human rights treaties as a
reaction to WWII where he states: “To some, the Cross represented that transformation;
to others, the Universal Declaration represented a secular story of liberation, one moving
away from both authoritarian rule and war.” 27 In contemporary times with the increase of
internecine and international wars and religious terrorism, the world has seen both a
disarray of civilized societies, and an increase in authoritarian rule in the form of the
invasions of privacy and the loss of freedoms and rights of people to governments
claiming to be compelled to do so in order to prevent terrorism. While rights were argued
and expected to improve the human condition, without the active participation of people
to respect, protect, or enhance the rights they are claimed to have, the impetus to
establish and further a greater conception of morality is brought into question.
Some interlocutors argue that notions of rights have failed entirely. In their work
“Human Rights as a Holistic Concept,” A. Belden Fields and Wolf-Dieter Narr argue that:
25
United Nations. History of the United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/aboutun/history/ 26
United Nations, UDHR. Ibid. 27 Winter, Jay. “Human Rights and European Remembrance.” In Memory and Theory in Eastern
Europe. Uilleam Blacker, Alexander Etkind, Julie Fedor, eds. Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History. (US: Palgrave Macmillan. 2013) 57.
18
[t]here is a sense that the world is progressing in a linear direction
toward the universal respect for human rights, or indeed that the
crucial normative issue finally has been determined. The problem is that
all of the momentum toward human rights remains at the level of
ideology. While the rhetoric is not without importance, it is a double-edged
sword; while spiritually uplifting, it also deludes us into accepting a very
rosy picture of a New World Order - a world order of a billion points of
light; a kinder, gentler world order.28
This statement points to the fact that notions of rights, and the UDHR in particular, are
not without detractions and cannot be accepted uncritically, or seen to be an operative
force in the creation of new normative and functional models of morality. As a form of
either idealism or intended pragmatism, the UDHR fails owing to the inversion of its
purpose: It does not establish rights in a positive sense; rather, it seeks to protect people
from the intrusions of authoritarianism and totalitarianism in a reactive sense. The UDHR
has little effect on those who would impose their agendas on other people in order to
exercise control over, or inflict harm on them, as those types of people tend not to care
about any presumed rights of others. Therefore, the rights prescribed in the UDHR
remain purely ideological unless they are actively protected and backed by force of law,
and/or by might (violence). Rights can, and only need to exist in apposition to wrongs;
with no wrongs, there would be no need to assert rights.
This is shown in the text of the UDHR where it states “Whereas it is essential, if
man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against
28 Fields, A. Belden, and Narr, Wolf-Dieter. “Human Rights as a Holistic Concept.” Human Rights
Quarterly Vol. 14, No. 1 (Feb., 1992), (pp. 1-20) 1992. (Johns Hopkins University Press) 1.
19
tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.”29 If
notions of freedoms and rights were fundamental and normatively moral, then no need
of defence or prosecution would be necessary, and no force or penalty applied for
purposes of enforcement. Fields and Narr emphasize this point when they ask: “This
universal profession of love for human rights begs some crucial issues. For
example, what do we mean by human rights?” 30 If an entitlement to a right cannot be
defended, or is not defended, the notion of a right is moot, making it, as Fields and Narr
indicate - idealism. In this view there are no such things as rights. Moreover, where the
UDHR proclaims the right to religions, there is no mechanism except by force of secular
law or violence to resolve conflicts that arise out of competing religious claims, hence
creating further conflicts. If people assert rights that abrogate the rights of others, how
can conflicts be resolved other than by negating the rights of one or both parties? From
the standpoint of establishing a normative morality, the notion of rights poses challenges
to their own principles in that they are a form of idealism, and in some cases may require
use of authoritarian application and action - making them similar to authoritarian
theocentric morality.
However, this does not negate notions of rights entirely. Rights exist as a soft
evolution and historical transition in the way humans see themselves: no longer as
subjects or instruments of authorities with group identities, (e.g., national or religious) but
as individuals with yearnings and a need to survive and to thrive. As precursors to and
formative of transitions to more humane conceptions of human existence - codifications
of civil and human rights may be seen as constitutive and representative expressions of
29
United Nations, UDHR. Ibid. 30
Fields and Narr, Ibid., 1.
20
an awakening of human value(s). Here, what other moral codes hold in their intentions
as implicit, notions of rights have made explicit. However, this does not solve the
problems of human conduct and conflict that conceptions of rights and morality are
intended to address. Thus, in conceptions of rights we see another example, along with
that of secular reason, of what is arguably a stalled transitional moment.
Acknowledging the failure of secular reason, Habermas inquires: “Could an
altered perspective on the genealogy of reason rescue postmetaphysical thinking from
this dilemma?” 31 The perspective recognizes, as do notions of rights, the necessary
relation of reason to the absolute value and worth of all humanity as recognized in the
UDHR, and to make that the crucial and only referent of reason and morality. This
perspective, I will argue, is in part what comprises the “missing essence” of secular
reason, and this deficit, in my view, has permitted the corruption and instrumentalization
of reason leading to its failure as a source of moral guidance. Here, we provide reason
with a referent that protects against corruption, and may in part create a substantive and
proactive normative basis for secular reason to form on and to be operative in pluralistic
societies. However, merely conjoining all that the UDHR stipulates as comprising a
conception of human dignity and value as a referent is insufficient to complete a
comprehensive constellation that makes it understandable, and provides ways to effect
it. Hence, in the next chapter, I will propose a set of moral principles linked to personal
responsibility that encourages individuals to internalize this essence of reason as
inextricably bound to human value, and engenders becoming self-reflective, self-
referential, self-aware, and therefore independent and interdependent moral agents.
31
Habermas, Ibid., 19.
21
Chapter 2: Morality as Universal Fundamental
Principles
Chapter Summary: This chapter proposes a basic set of moral principles that seek
to be self-referential for people, and operative independent of external moral
authority. A cornerstone of principles combined with personal responsibility that
universalises to all people is argued to provide a stable and internally consistent
conception of morality.
Morality as Universal Fundamental Principles
I propose that the missing essence of morality in secular reason, in
conjunction with the UDHR, be a set of principles that are internally consistent,
which, if they are understood and adhered to, provide a basis for a positive conception
of morality that can function as a baseline of morality. The principles presented are
expressed through the thoughts and writings of others. However, they are also the
product of a “reverse thinking” process, by which it is meant not that moral principles
were discovered entirely through a creative investigation, but instead that they were
also deduced and realized through a process of questioning and rejecting flawed
notions of morality. Additionally, they are derived from life experiences by being
present when people acted in moral ways that appealed to a personal and often
shared sense of true moral justice, which were recognized as being “true” on a level
that is below the limen of consciousness; not cognized, but felt, recognized, and
understood as being just. They were also in part
22
perceived and recognized through events and instances of injustice in the same way.
No conception of morality can anticipate or codify all aspects of human
behaviour; hence a basic set of principles is proposed that can extrapolate to more
sophisticated conceptions of moral understandings. The principles are intended to
encourage and enable people to reflect and engage in dialectical thought to synthesize
the best moral attitudes and solutions as individual moral agents. Here, the term
“principle” is used in the sense of being a fundamental truth as a basis of reasoning or
action. People are self-impelled to take responsibility for all aspects of morality and
ethical actions: their deliberations, responses, actions, and the consequences. A chief
intention is to link moral reasoning to the tenets of the UDHR, making the intrinsic value
of humanity and all life the salient concern of the moral conception and for reason.
The proposed model defines morality as an active and pragmatic process, as
distinct from systematized or theoretical imperatives, or of external authority that tends to
distance moral agents from an innate sense of moral compass.32 It is intended to inform
and foster a morality that becomes internalised, creating a self-other homeostasis that is
benign, mutually beneficial, and life-affirming. Further, it is intended to provide the basis
for the transition from dependence on existing moral codes to allowing moral
independence and autonomy that consensually universalises to all people. Importantly, it
seeks to function regardless of various categories of differences amongst and across
groups, and may support creating a more peaceful and fruitful existence for humanity.
32 Moral Compass. A natural feeling that makes people know what is right and wrong and how
they should behave. Cambridge Dictionaries online. Cambridge University Press. 2013. http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/moral-compass
23
In this conception, we are not compelled to have or to ascribe to any “collectively
binding ideal”33 of images or symbols. Instead, we are encouraged to behave individually
as self-guided moral agents through combined awareness of the moral principles in
conjunction with the responsibility to do so, which binds people to their own humanity,
and by extension to all humanity in the sense of our humaneness. People thus may all
share a baseline of moral principles that universalise on the strength of their intrinsic
merits as universally good for all, and which will hold appeal based on their survival
value and that they will permit people to flourish if they observe them willingly. That is,
people will recognize the inherent value for their own life, which universalises to others
and is mutually beneficial, and they will be attracted to this conception on its own merits.
This secondarily creates an interdependence of people who can, eventually, learn to
trust and rely on each other to act morally through practice and experience.
The first, and more basic and general of a proposed three-part conception is
adapted from Friedrich Nietzsche’s work Beyond Good and Evil. Nietzsche has argued
that humanity creates truths that are “creative fictions” that aid people in getting through
struggles in living that place the “truths” beyond good and evil (untruth as a condition of
life).34 Here Nietzsche appears to be suggesting that untruths are legitimized by the
challenges of life, and are beyond moral considerations if they are “life-furthering, life-
preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing.”35 Whether Nietzsche is
sanctioning this view, or merely acknowledging it, is questionable. In any case this view
33
Habermas, Ibid., 19. 34
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. (New York: Vintage Books, 1966) Ch.1, par. 4, 11. There are varying interpretations of Nietzsche’s philosophy. In this context I intend it to suggest a capacity for people to question and be disabused of false notions that limit or prohibit healthy and life supporting conceptions of life as desired and desirable alternatives, and not to live lies.
35 Ibid.
24
cannot be accepted, for at best it perpetuates human suffering (in the forms that cause
the necessity of untruths), and at worst it legitimizes the immoral causes of untruths.
However, this notion of untruth is useful to provide a comparison and a contrast by which
to provide clarity. In this context, I intend to clarify Nietzsche’s conception to show that
no fictions can comprise a pro-active and “true” life supporting conception of morality
that rejects all conceptions that compromise human flourishing.
People therefore must be prepared to question, and then to self-consciously
relinquish their reactive and negative value-based beliefs - their untruths - to support an
incorruptible conception of morality that refers to the tenets of our fundamental humanity
as denoted in the UDHR, and to anchor to it. The beliefs relinquished must be replaced
by ideas and beliefs that meet the test of being good (moral), defined as those that are in
this explicit sense life-supporting, “life-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving,
perhaps species-rearing”36 in a non-reactive positive way that takes an absolutist
position for advocating and preserving the life and well-being of all people. I intend this
pro-life conception to include other species, and the environment that all living things
depend on for their existence as a comprehensive life-supporting holism - to the greatest
extent possible. Preservation also implies passive “live-and-let-live” non-interference.
This conception as a baseline of morality proposes a model of reasoned
deliberation, and implicit in his formulation is a no-harm or least-harm model. Implicit
also in the deliberative process that refers to Nietzsche’s cornerstone of morality is the
intersection with the responsibility necessary to being willing and committed to being
36
Ibid.
25
morally aware, responsible, accountable, and to be independent moral agents. I will
argue that this concept seeks to encourage autonomy and to enable people to make
moral decisions without authoritarian codifications that are restrictive, relativistic, or
deprives individuals of the strength of their own moral awareness and capacity for ethical
action. As a universalising conception that is life supporting, Nietzsche’s ideal conjoins
reason, knowledge, values, attitudes, and affect in a universalistic egalitarianism.
Dutch researcher Frans de Waal’s37 work comprises the second part of the three-
part cornerstone of morality proposed here. The interest in using de Waal’s research and
findings pivots on that animal studies traditionally assumed a vicious and selfish “survival
of the fittest” model of existence that did not admit of moral behaviors in animals, or in
humans as animals. De Waal reoriented his assumptions about animals which resulted
in a different view (worldview) that yielded substantially different facts about animal
behavior and morality that inform the assumptions of this work. Here, I am arguing that
people too, as de Waal did with animals, may see themselves in a different context with
different sets of assumptions about their moral capacities, and their abilities to live in a
greater community of humanity in a more natural moral way.
De Waal argues that morality consists of the essential “Two pillars of morality:
Reciprocity-fairness, and Empathy-compassion.” 38 The four constituents of de Waal’s
account of morality are complementary to Nietzsche’s reasoned cornerstone conception 37
Frans de Waal is a primatologist and ethologist. In anticipating objections to using animal research, it should be noted that de Waal’s empirical observational research yields results of positive moral behaviours in animals similar to, or the same as humans. Numerous ethical codes and research on human morality can be resourced that match what de Waal posits.
38 De Waal, Frans. Moral behavior in animals. Video on TED (Filmed Nov 2011. Posted Apr 2012) New York: TED Conferences LLC. 2012. http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals.html/
26
insofar as it identifies and relates to, and includes a positive emotional basis for
understanding and affirming the value of individuals in relation to others. De Waal
recognizes that there are other elements of morality; however, he argues that if these
fundamentals are absent, all morality collapses.39 These pillars facilitate the building and
maintenance of human relationships as a socializing process by both encouraging
identification with others, as well as concomitantly reducing perceptions of “otherness”
such as differing beliefs or habits of living.40 De Waal further notes:
It is not hard to recognise the two pillars of human morality in the
behaviour of other animals. These pillars are elegantly summed up in the
golden rule that transcends the world's cultures and religions: "Do unto
others as you would have them do unto you." This unites empathy
(attention to another's feelings) with reciprocity (if others follow the same
rule, you too will be treated well). Human morality as we know it is
unthinkable without empathy and reciprocity.41
Reciprocity and fairness to others are mutually supportive (Golden Rule),42 for
example being seen as encouraging benevolent affects and altruistic intentions manifest
as “right action” attitudes. Reciprocity and fairness are also exquisite expressions of
human justice. Empathy means the ability and willingness to identify with others mentally
(perspective taking) and emotionally as the capacity to recognize the joys and struggles
of life common to all people, and therefore to respect sameness. Compassion is often
39
Ibid. 40
“Habits of living” is coined to encompass socialization, culture, society, spiritual beliefs, nationality, etc. all of which are adaptable or changeable and hence are not defining of a person and cannot subjugate or abrogate their fundamental humanity.
41 De Waal, Frans. "The animal roots of human morality." New Scientist 192, no. 2573 (October 14, 2006) 60-61.
42 The Golden Rule is argued to exist in all the world religions. This suggests a universal understanding of morality that is operative at a level of consciousness below religious belief.
27
manifested as the inclination to help others or to be merciful as pro-social behaviour.
The essence of the conceptions of moral foundations from Nietzsche and de
Waal is that in combination they represent and engender positive emotions and trust
(mutuality) amongst and across groups of people, which in turn creates an interchange
of “self-other” in life supporting ways that both recognize the intrinsic value of individuals,
and reduce or avert tensions in social contexts. In the best case, moral awareness may
arguably result in altruistic behaviours. Humans exist in mutual relationships; the broader
the scope of the relationships people can envisage and accommodate, the greater the
potential for human flourishing – to survive and to thrive.
Albert Einstein in “The Laws of Science and the Laws of Ethics” discussed ethical
axioms relating to survival and to truth statements. In the present project I am viewing
Einstein’s work as the third element of the cornerstone of morality. Here, he attempts to
articulate intangibles of human existence that, I argue, finds a consensus with, and
supports the life affirming statement derived from Nietzsche, and also affirm de Waal’s
pillars of morality insofar as Einstein articulates that at base morality is tied to survival
and emotion, and our urge for life. Each of the four elements has a strong emotional
component - benevolence and justice - or may garner strong emotional reactions if they
are denied or ignored, or assailed. Einstein articulates this as ethical axioms:
For pure logic all axioms are arbitrary, including the axioms of ethics. But
they are by no means arbitrary from a psychological and genetic point of
view. They are derived from our inborn tendencies to avoid pain and
annihilation and from the accumulated emotional reactions of individuals
28
to the behavior of their neighbors.43
Einstein’s observation may be extended from the negative (avoiding pain and
annihilation) to include the positive accumulation of emotional reactions that are the
consequence of being treated in an unfailingly life supporting, moral way. Here I find
support for the argument that it is possible to suggest a non-arbitrary conception of
moral principles. However, while Einstein discusses the notion of ethical axioms, he
does not articulate a conception of how they may be understood, except obliquely. I
have attempted to define an ethical axiom that complements and augments Einstein’s
notion. It seeks to articulate the premises of an ethical axiom as life/moral principles that
explicates and attempts to elucidate what underlies the notions from Nietzsche and de
Waal that may universalise to all people as part of the raison d'être of this work:
An ethical axiom based on the psychologistic notion of “projection-
identification” is proposed. It is conceived of as follows: If I am human and
you are human, and we both have innate drives to survive and to thrive,
then in a fundamental sense we are identical, and we therefore must
identify with each other by virtue of our common humanity. If we interfere
in the physical or psychic existence of another individual with malicious
intent, or to bring about pain and suffering intentionally which necessarily
incurs a negative effect, we violate the principle of our axiom, and by
extension violate ourselves. In this light we can see that by the volitional
incurrence of pain and suffering we consequently reject our own life and
nature: and by extension may be seen to reject life itself.44
43
Einstein, Albert. “The Laws of Science and the Laws of Ethics. (Preface to Phillipp, Frank Relativity. A Richer Truth, 1950, Reprinted in Out of My Later Years, 1950)” Humanist Anthology: From Confucius to Attenborough. Margaret Knight. ed. (New York: Prometheus Books, 1995) 158-160.
44 Marshall, Dan. Female Genital Mutilation, Religious Rights, and Religious Praxis; Humanity Betrayed: Canadian Law as Humane Intervention. July 29, 1998. Unpublished.
29
The conceptions of moral principles offered by Nietzsche and de Waal provide a
fundamental baseline of morality that may effectively articulate what is implicit in the
Golden Rule. Together, the basics of morality from Nietzsche, de Waal, and Einstein
might constitute a “universal morality” that is natural to all people. While it is useful to
propose a conception of basic moral principles and a way to understand and think about
them, a basic set of insights and guidelines as to how to usefully implement them is also
required. Insofar as that a conception of morality that has an internal locus is advanced,
it is necessary to suggest a complementary notion of the responsibilities needed to
support it. A guide of responsibilities that completes a conception of a missing essence
is proposed that I have called the Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities.
Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities
The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights45 (UDHR) is notable since while
rights are advocated, there is no inclusion of any concomitant responsibilities to support
them. There are only the assertions of rights and authoritative demands that rights are to
be observed since the assumption is that rights must be backed by laws46 to compel
individuals or associations to act morally. In order that people may mature morally, and
to become disabused of authority/authoritarian models of morality, it is essential that
people take individual responsibility for their moral deliberations and actions in a way
that is self-referential and bound to the moral principles argued for, and in order that all
people may become self-reflective moral agents. Here, I propose a guide to individual 45
United Nations, UDHR. Ibid. 46 United Nations. International Human Rights Law. Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights. (OHCHR) http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/Pages/InternationalLaw.aspx
30
responsibility that is intended to bind to the U.N. UDHR and moral principles as a chief
component of a universalising secular morality, and that the three be used conjointly.
The notion of human responsibilities arose very early in my life from observing
the human condition and witnessing an abundance of human misery and suffering. In my
view, it appeared that two possible conditions prevailed: One condition was that people
were not aware of the causes of their suffering, and their faiths (religions) often either
ignored the causes, or served to create as many problems as they purported to
assuage, which suggested on some level a self-fulfilling and self-justifying iterative
constellation. The other condition was noting that people typically avoid moral
responsibility in many situations. In particular, there were those who did wrong things
and claimed an external locus (God or the Devil or another person) made them do it.
Moreover, it is my observation that it was often the case that people would not
take responsibility so that they would not have to “confess” or expose their wrongs and
receive punishments or other consequences. This raised important questions for me
about the legitimacy and usefulness of punishments except to skew morality. Often, too,
it appeared that people simply did not know what constituted a right or wrong action or
the impact, meaning, or consequences of their actions in either the short or long term.
The notion of responsibilities also arose from observing people who refused to accept
the burden of thinking for themselves and stand behind their views and convictions
rather than merely report or abide by the mistaken and often damaging views of others.
For example, the notion of race was often used to rationalize racism and was
often used as a justification for hatred, marginalization of people, or using violence. What
31
is missing from this notion is recognition of the humanity of another person. The
problems and contradictions in such thinking and practices could be shown when people
learned that they might become the object of another’s “racist” views, and they did not
like the realization of their former position, or how their lack of awareness and
knowledge could imperil them, or had limited their sense of their own humanity and
humaneness.
From this kind of reflective example, we may conclude that human beings are
predisposed to have a basic knowledge and an awareness of the essence of morality,
but a fuller articulation and moral cultivation is both needed and wanted. The notion of
individual responsibility that is coupled to a useful conception of morality also provides a
means and the freedom to transcend the ignorance as lack of knowledge that keeps
people helpless and dependent on authoritarian moral codes and institutions, such as
those conferred by church or state. Thus, I would argue that a notion of universalising
individual responsibilities is warranted. On reading the United Declaration of Human
Rights and finding no corresponding manifesto of responsibilities, I thought the solution
was to attempt to write one.
In 1999, while working on my conception of a Universal Declaration of Universal
Responsibilities I did not find any corresponding manifesto on the United Nations web
site related to the UDHR, or other manifestos of human responsibilities written relating to
human rights. Currently, while writing this project manuscript another manifesto of rights
was brought to my attention, and I located others. In examining these manifestos I find
affirmation for my position that a conception of a Universal Declaration of Human
Responsibilities is valid in relation to the UDHR and other notions and manifestos of civil
32
and human rights in that there is a broader consensus and support for all those who
have identified a similar and compelling need. I find this to be encouraging and positive
for all humanity in the context of advancing human concerns and moral consciousness,
and find a great deal of contiguity among the various versions in the intent to advocate
that people must be responsible in order to support conceptions of rights as moral
guides.
As of July 2016 there is no official version that is published on the United Nations
web site in direct conjunction with the UDHR, or as an extension or addendum to it.47 A
version similar to what I have authored is found published on the extended United
Nations organization infrastructure on The Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) web site and is titled: “Declaration on the
Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and
Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.” 48
In comparing this U.N. version with what I have formulated, contiguities are seen
in that rights are supported by conceptions of related responsibilities. My conception is
distinguished in that my intention is to create a document that refers to a personal
responsibility that relates most specifically to the conception of secular morality I am
essaying. Further, my conception seeks to provide guides and tests of its own efficacy
that is accessible to a global population. Further distinctions are that the UN conception
47
United Nations, UDHR. Ibid. 48
United Nations. Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Adopted by General Assembly resolution 53/144 of 9 December 1998. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/Pages/RightandResponsibility.aspx
33
of responsibilities includes the establishment of domestic and international laws that
support the enforcement of rights, and appears to assume an informed reader and
discusses specific matters of state. My conception is intended to be accessible and
relevant to all people of all ages as a way to engage thinking about morality and
responsibility in novel or unaccustomed ways, and to support the transition in moral
consciousness and secular morality I have advocated. Importantly, Article 7 of the UN
manifesto of rights and responsibilities confers a codified right of others, such as myself
and the others who have composed notions of responsibilities, to create their
conceptions where it is stated “Everyone has the right, individually and in association
with others, to develop and discuss new human rights ideas and principles and to
advocate their acceptance.”49 This statement is an affirming coincidence of creating an
explicit right, which relies on the individual responsibility of people to advocate new
notions of rights and responsibilities for human growth and advancement.
I am fully aware that The Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities 50 I
have written is a tentative work, and I intend it to be an open document subject to
scrutiny and revision, and to be tested for its value in explicating and advancing what is
proposed in it.51 My intention for it is also that it functions as a type of heuristic “toolbox”
of guides, ideas, tests, and as a means to involve and engage people. Written in the
style of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, my formulation of a Universal
Declaration of Human Responsibilities is as follows:
49
United Nations. Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals. Ibid. 50 Marshall, Dan. Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities: An Addendum to: The United
Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. November 9, 1999. Unpublished. 51
The complete work is not included here. The full text contains references that may not be included at this time.
34
1. All human beings are born free and with full rights to life and all that is
necessary to the maintenance of life, and will understand that in
sustaining their own life will bear the responsibility of ensuring that they
understand that the same force compelling their own life is alive in every
person also, and to conduct themselves in respect of that knowledge, and
in recognition and respect of the life of every person.
2. All people bear the responsibility to actively seek to recognize the
fundamental humanity of all people, in all places, and at all times. All
people must understand that such active participation in the interest of
humanity ensures their own place, safety, and trust in a social world.
Trust, decency, dignity and the desire for safety are rightly the generally
universal human experience.
3. For all people in the world to exist in safety from other people requires
that in all instances of conflict people are bound by the responsibility to
their own, and to every other person's right to life to engage, where
possible, in the act of exploring alternative means to resolve the conflicts
present, until such time as each conflict is prevented or resolved
peacefully to the greatest benefit and satisfaction of all humanity.
4. All people are, and will be responsible for the public trust insofar as that
all people have the fundamental human right to exist unmolested, and to
that end must exercise the most just solutions to human conflict,
ignorance, or suffering whenever and wherever a solution is wanted or
needed. It is in this way that humanity will eventually come to learn that
no person is above nor exempt from the responsibility for just action, and
for the highest forms of justice to prevail in all life.
35
5. (1) It is the responsibility of all people to provide or to seek as
necessary guidance free of ambiguity, free of hypocrisy, and free of any
self-serving bias which may harm humanity, or which under scrutiny can
be shown to be false or negates life.
5. (2) It is therefore the responsibility of every individual to seek wise
guidance, and to actively, honestly, and critically think through the implied
consequences of the yield of any such guidance given or received in
order to learn to judge for themselves, and thereby ensure a self-
determined and autonomous knowledge of what constitutes wisdom and
justice, and hence to discern what will or will not be to the benefit of all
humanity. Therefore, it is a responsibility to think for oneself.
6. (1) Wise guidance is desirable when the bias is serving one’s own
healthy self interest in belonging to our greater humanity. In this sense
the self-interest is known to be a healthy and positive self- interest
wherein all humanity is the beneficiary and it is identical with the interests
of humanity at large.
6. (2) It is therefore the responsibility of all people to aspire and adhere to
the authority of wisdom and all autonomous and healthy understandings
of things human, and to aver from accepting illegitimate authority where
there can be negative consequences for humanity either individually or on
the whole.
7. (1) It is the responsibility of every person to support and observe just
laws where just laws exist for the benefit of humanity, until such time as
no laws are deemed necessary.
7. (2) It is the responsibility of every person to refuse and resist unjust
laws as they can wherever unjust laws are imposed upon humanity, to the
fullest extent of their ability to do so.
36
8. Every person will, through the responsible striving to understand their
own humanity, learn and exercise the higher thrusts of life: hope,
compassion, charity, trust, kindness, and Peace in the humane and
humanitarian tradition, and will henceforth strive to pass such
understanding on to others.
9. Every person will strive to understand that in every case seeking the
best for other members of the human species is ultimately in humane
terms identical with seeking the best for oneself.
10. (1) Every person will seek education, wherever possible, of a kind
which develops their greatest human potentials, insofar as that such
education will conform to its precept “to lead out.”
10. (2) An understanding of responsibility in regards to any education will
require that all persons will engage only in educational pursuits and
practices which can clearly be shown to enhance life, healthy emotional
development, friendship, and good will to be directed to others. When all
humanity is engaged thus, conflict abates amongst individuals and across
groups.
11. Every person will recognize that their own fundamental humanity, and
by extension, that the fact of the essential fundamental humanity of all
humanity, is of greater importance than any particular belief or religion or
doctrine. Moreover, by extension, people will understand that the process
of creating beliefs, religions, and doctrines is a process and function of
humanity common to all humanity, and that the individual beliefs do not
admit nor allow any person to disregard the fundamental humanity of any
person or group or persons.
37
12. Every person should carefully examine all communications, directives,
and motivations to belief or to action in order to ensure that all the
intentions, actions, and outcomes of such compelling efforts will serve the
best interest of all humanity, in both the short term and the long term.
13. (1) Every person will engage in or support the responsible and
scrupulous evaluation of all existing documents, constitutions, legislation,
charters, and other forms of human discourse guiding or regulating
human life and action, to ensure that such bodies of work ultimately serve
the humane interests of all humanity equally and without distinction.
13. (2) All social constructs guiding or regulating human life and action
will be continuously re-evaluated to ensure that the emerging broader
global humanitarian social consciousness is reflected in those works.
Inclusions which are outdated or are no longer useful or relevant in a
contemporary context reflecting a developing humane consciousness will
be removed through a due and responsible process, in the interest of all
humanity.
14. No person will deny their responsibility to discover, to experience, and
to advance any or all of that which can be considered to properly be the
responsibility of humanity to humanity. In that each person will strive to
assure the best of humanity through responsible action and experience,
they are participating in humanity realizing itself in the most enlightened
sense.
15. Every person should independently exercise their own powers of
critical judgment, just thought, conceptions of unassailable truths, and
should ultimately come to their own understanding of how best to
understand the concept of responsibility itself in the social context.
38
16. Every person, if having found any of the foregoing to be sound,
practical, and life supporting, will therefore have recognized their own
fundamental humanity in some measure, and in that sense will then
recognize that they properly belong to the greater human family.
17. Every person is bound by individual responsibility to examine,
analyse, and assess all the principles and premises contained in this
statement of The Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities to
critically test the value for their selves, and for all humanity.
18. Every person, if having found the foregoing Universal Declaration of
Human Responsibilities to have passed the rigors prescribed within it,
must on their own responsibility consider, augment, elucidate, and
contribute any of their expanded conceptions and understandings to
others, to the benefit of all humanity, for the love of humanity, and for life
itself.
In advocating the combining of a basic (or fundamental) set of moral principles
with a conception of personal responsibilities, the intention is to create an intelligible and
cohesive response to the moral problems facing humanity. The two chief factors
involved are to enable people to take responsibility for their own lives by providing a
framework that universalises and generalizes to an existence that has a potential of
achieving a pragmatic optimism, and to suggest a solution to the identified problems of
morality where other conceptions and models are seen to have failed. The second factor
is to encourage and enable people to recognize and understand the necessity of forming
an intention to facilitate their own growth in order to achieve ways of living that are
imaginable, and can be realized. The forming of an intention and the facilitation of
39
growth is concomitant with a process of psychological and emotional maturation of
individuals, and the maturation of civilized societies as part of a natural progression.
In recognizing the necessity of maturity, psychoanalyst Erik Erikson in Childhood
and Society anticipates the transition from dependency on authority to independence
and autonomy. He states that children should undergo a “healthy ego development
which results in an autonomous and integrated personality, and an identity formation that
seems to support an individual’s ego identity as long as he can preserve an element of
deliberate tentativeness of autonomous choice." 52 Erikson’s view echoes that of
Immanuel Kant in his essay “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” in
which he wrote:
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] "Have courage to
use your own understanding!" - that is the motto of enlightenment.53
While Kant suggests a useful ideal, it is arguably the case that if people could have used
their own understanding in attaining moral enlightenment they would have. However,
given that they did not in everyday life, it is useful to assume that they did not have a
method or a substantive knowledge to facilitate growth. And, attaining maturity is not a
52 Erikson, Erik. Childhood and Society (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1985) 286.
53 Kant, Immanuel. “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” Konigsberg in Prussia, 30 September 1784 https://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/cvsp/Documents/reading_selections/CVSP 203/Fall 13-14/What is Enlightenment - Immanuel kant.pdf
40
quantum jump; it is a gradual process of development requiring a combination of
information, method, training, education,54 and adequate resources of time and
opportunity. While conditions will vary for people at different times and in different
contexts, and despite individual capacities or limitations of any kind (cognitive,
developmental, emotional, etc.), the attitude for responsibility and agency is crucial.
Joseph Rotblat has stated a case for personal responsibility succinctly in the
context of science and of scientists who take no moral stance or responsibility for their
scientific developments, although his concerns apply to all life:
At the present time, when the distinction between pure and applied
science is largely non-existent, such an amoral attitude is unacceptable.
Indeed, it is – in my opinion – an immoral attitude, because it eschews
personal responsibility for the likely consequences of one’s actions.55
In advocating moral principles and in making a case for the importance of
personal responsibility as a combined model for a direction toward a globalizing moral
orientation for humanity, it is important to include a means whereby we seek aiding
advancing an integrated universalising secular morality. However, any theory must be
put to an empirical test that is suited to its subject and that examines whether the
premises are viable, and whether the theory can be shown to work. To that end, a test of
the proposed principles and responsibility is undertaken next.
54
Educate is from the Latin roots “Educo” and “Educere”, meaning "to lead out, lead forth, to raise up; to erect." University of British Columbia. Latin Dictionary. http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/frivs/latin/latin-dict-full.html#E
55 Rotblat, Joseph. ”Science and Human Values.” World Conference on Science in Budapest. 10 June 1999. 2. http://britishpugwash.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2003/11/ScienceandHumanValues.pdf
41
Chapter 3: Testing Moral Principles
Chapter Summary: This chapter examines whether the proposed conception of moral
principles in combination with the notion of universal human responsibilities is a
defensible and viable model. Its viability is tested by assessing its criteria against moral
exemplars who embody strong evidence of moral understandings and responsibility, and
those who do not. A summary of the exemplars is presented at the end of the chapter.
Moral Exemplars
In proposing a set of basic moral principles, and having suggested a conception
of individual responsibility to attempt to provide a “backbone” for secular reason and a
universalised secular morality, merely suggesting principles and responsibility cannot
provide any type of test or evidence that the proposed conceptions are viable. Testing
the notions proposed is arguably best facilitated by examining individuals through their
experiences and actions as moral exemplars.
That is, examining the moral attitudes and positions of the exemplars helps
illustrate the moral principles and responsibilities advocated for in order to attempt to
make them more comprehensive and comprehensible. In this context, moral exemplars
are compared and contrasted with other individuals of approximately equal stature. For
both positive and negative exemplars, individuals were selected based on available
empirical evidence that is used to examine and support the claims made about their
42
moral orientations and actions. Resources will be examined, where available, such as
historical records, biographical information, autobiographies, videos, and selected
writings by the exemplars accordingly. Through examining the specific actions and
evidence of exemplars an attempt will be made to provide evidence for, or to gain
insights into the degree to which their morality is linked to their sense of individual
responsibility, and their actions can be seen to display the proposed model, or do not.
My interest in moral exemplars arose from attending a talk titled “How to Get Rid
of Nuclear Weapons” given by Joseph Rotblat at the University of British Columbia at the
Vancouver Institute Public Lectures series in March 1997.56 Learning of Dr. Rotblat’s
personal history as related to his involvement in the Atomic Bomb, and hearing his
intriguing talk on nuclear weapons all appealed to my long-standing personal interests in
peace and human conscience, and the failures of them.
Positive Exemplars
Positive moral exemplars are individuals who are seen to embody and display a
non-ordinary degree of moral principles, moral responsibility, and ethical action that is
deemed desirable as a more commonplace moral conception. Exemplars were chosen
as a sample of those who have been distinguished by being recognized through peace
or humanitarian awards, or forms of public consensus of exemplary conduct as reflected
in the context of the moral principles proposed in the Nietzsche/de Waal conception.
56 Rotblat, Joseph “How to get rid of Nuclear Weapons.” Vancouver Institute. University of British
Columbia. UBC Library Open Collections. March 1, 1997. Video recording. http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/institute/vaninst9.html
43
Dr. Joseph Rotblat
Joseph Rotblat57 was a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate,58 and was awarded the
Nobel in 1995 for his work and contributions to the Pugwash Movement.59 He received
the prize in conjunction with the Pugwash organization that he was instrumental in
founding. The Pugwash movement arose out of Dr. Rotblat’s concerns with nuclear
weapons disarmament during World War II, in conjunction with the philosopher Bertrand
Russell. The “Pugwash Pact” 60 was the result of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955).61
The Russell-Einstein Manifesto is a document and instrument confirmed and supported
by scientists and others at the time indicating the dangers of nuclear weapons and which
called for the peaceful settlement of international conflicts. Joseph Rotblat was among
the eleven original signatories.62 He was knighted in 1998.
During World War II Dr. Rotblat was involved in the building of the Atomic Bomb
in the “Manhattan Project” at Los Alamos New Mexico. When it became evident to him
and others that the Germans were no longer proceeding to build an atomic/nuclear
weapon, Dr. Rotblat asked to leave the Manhattan Project on the grounds of conscience.
In his autobiographical account “Leaving the Bomb Project” 63 Dr. Rotblat discussed his
57
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Sir Joseph Rotblat: British physicist and philanthropist. Biography. Updated 1/13/2016. Chicago. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Rotblat/
58 Rotblat, Joseph. “Facts.” Peace Prize Laureates: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1995. Sweden: Nobel Media AB. 2016 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1995/rotblat-facts.html
59 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ibíd.
60 Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. http://pugwash.org/
61 Ibíd., “Manifesto.” http://pugwash.org/1955/07/09/statement-manifesto/
62 Ibid.
63 Rotblat, Joseph, Dr. "Leaving the Bomb Project". Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, August 1985. 18.
44
reasons for leaving the project writing:
Sometimes Bohr stayed on and talked to me about the social and political
implications of the discovery of nuclear energy and of his worry about the
dire consequences of a nuclear arms race between East and West which
he foresaw.
All this, and the growing evidence that the war in Europe would be over
before the bomb project was completed, made my participation in it
pointless. If it took the Americans such a long time, then my fear of the
Germans being first was groundless. When it became evident, toward the
end of 1944, that the Germans had abandoned their bomb project, the
whole purpose of my being in Los Alamos ceased to be, and I asked for
permission to leave and return to Britain. Why did other scientists not
make the same decision? Obviously, one would not expect General
Groves to wind up the project as soon as Germany was defeated, but
there were many scientists for whom the German factor was the main
motivation. Why did they not quit when this factor ceased to be?
Several points pertaining to Dr. Rotblat’s decision and actions merit mention. First, Dr.
Rotblat was the only scientist to leave the Manhattan project on the grounds of
conscience. Second, the building of the bomb was a “legal” undertaking, sanctioned by
the governments of the U.S. and Britain. Third, the building of the bomb had been
deemed morally defensible, a necessity in fact at the time it was undertaken. Lastly, had
the bomb not been built when it was believed the enemy was building one of their own it
would have been morally indefensible not to, leaving the western powers and European
populations vulnerable to attack if the Nazis had succeeded in building their own.
Joseph Rotblat did not claim to be a pacifist or idealist: he had an acute sense of
the need for defence against aggression and an understanding of the necessity and duty
45
to preserve one’s own life and the lives of others, and hence the duty not to be complicit
in the violence of passivity. When the threat of the Nazis developing an atomic bomb
had ended, Dr. Rotblat recognized that all necessity for nuclear weapons development
with their inherent destructive capabilities to all life and the environment should end. It
was because of his moral convictions that he made his remarkable decision. He wrote:
The groups I have just described - scientists with a social conscience -
were a minority in the scientific community. The majority were not
bothered by moral scruples; they were quite content to leave it to others
to decide how their work would be used. Much the same situation exists
now in many countries in relation to work on military projects. But it is the
morality issue at a time of war that perplexes and worries me most.64
Here Dr. Rotblat acted on moral principles identical to those articulated in the
Nietzsche/de Wall conception of a higher order moral principle, and he demonstrated the
responsibility of addressing the problems of morality in war, and that could lead to war in
the first instance. In the case of the Atomic Bomb, had all the actors/agents involved
deliberated and been self-reflectively and responsibly moral in the way Dr. Rotblat was,
the bomb would not have been built, and not used, and hence no resulting dire threat of
nuclear arms would have resulted.
The decision to end his participation in the bomb project came at a cost to Dr.
Rotblat; he wrote that it altered his life and his scientific career. He subsequently spent
the remainder of his life working with Pugwash in efforts to reverse the course of what he
had participated in creating that was a threat to all life. It was in 1985 when he reflected
64
Ibid., 18.
46
on his actions in “Leaving the Bomb Project” stating:
After 40 years one question keeps nagging me: have we learned enough
not to repeat the mistakes we made then? I am not sure even about
myself. Not being an absolute pacifist, I cannot guarantee that I would not
behave in the same way, should a similar situation arise. Our concepts of
morality seem to get thrown overboard once military action starts. It is,
therefore, most important not to allow such a situation to develop. Our
prime effort must concentrate on the prevention of nuclear war, because
in such a war not only morality but the whole fabric of civilization would
disappear.65
Dr. Rotblat’s fears were well informed and well founded; indeed, his words strengthen
the case for advancing a conception of morality that focuses on being life supporting, so
that war and all forms of destructive behaviours are avoided. The threat of nuclear
weapons remains a grave danger today, perhaps more than ever with people who hold
fundamentalist beliefs having access to such weapons. His misgivings compel the
finding of a morality that would not permit people to be in conflicts that could lead to war.
Joseph Rotblat displayed a non-ordinary degree of moral awareness and
personal responsibility. He did so entirely through an internal locus of morality, which
research shows religion was no part. Joseph Rotblat was born and raised in a Jewish
family, but he did not follow the teachings or the imperatives of any religion or religious
moral code. While it may be the case that his upbringing had an influence on his sense
of morality, he did not make any claim to this effect and there is no evidence that can be
located in any of his autobiographical or other writings that he attributed his moral
65
Ibid., 19.
47
position or convictions to his upbringing. His only reflection on his early life is that his life
was happy. The lack of religious faith or motives external to Dr. Rotblat’s own self-
reflective and self-responsible sense of morality are notable by their absence in his
autobiographical accounts of his actions. This is true not only of his actions evidenced in
the paper “Leaving the Bomb Project,” but also of his other writings and biographical
information.
In a 1986 documentary film about his life titled “The Strangest Dream” his niece
recounts a conversation she had with him in which she asked if he was an atheist. He
replied “Not an atheist but an agnostic.” To which she asked “But why? I call myself an
atheist.” And he replied, “As a scientist I can never say that something is impossible.” 66
Further evidence that religion did not appear to influence Rotblat’s views is found
in an exchange with Dr. Daisaku Ikeda in the book A Quest for Global Peace: Rotblat
and Ikeda on War, Ethics, and the Nuclear Threat 67 where he states:
When I say I am an optimist, I do not simply believe that world conditions
will improve of their own accord. Nothing will change unless we make an
effort to make the world a better place. Each person must do whatever he
or she can to contribute something to this effort . . . Optimism is the ethic
I live by. It is not a religious sentiment, but it may be similar to your
religious views. Dr. Ikeda, we start off from different points, but we arrive
at the same conclusions.
66
Bednarsky, Eric. The Strangest Dream. National Film Board of Canada. 2008. https://www.nfb.ca/film/strangest_dream/ Chapter 21. Time 1:20:35
67 Rotblat, Joseph. & Ikeda, Daisaku. A Quest for Global Peace: Rotblat and Ikeda on War, Ethics, and the Nuclear Threat. (London: I. B. Tauris, c2007) 104.
48
Here, it is clearly evident that Dr. Rotblat both understood and advocated the notion of
individual responsibility for moral thought and ethical action. This is not a naïve view; it is
an observation that indifference or passivity will not suffice to improve the moral standing
of humanity, and it is an expression of an intention to anticipate effecting change for the
future. Nor is his a view that reflects the mistaken utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy
Bentham who advocated a moral view that people should advance the “Greatest good
for the greatest number” which necessarily implies questionable implications for the
unfortunate few. 68 Joseph Rotblat’s optimism suggests that all people should actively
work toward the greatest good for all: precisely what the moral conception from
Nietzsche and de Wall anticipates. His optimism is an ethical intention of responsibility.
Claims have been made that some individuals who were self-professed atheists
or agnostics, or antitheists recanted their position at or near the end of their lives and
claimed to have accepted God, or Jesus Christ, or any religion. Capitulation of long held
atheistic or agnostic (or other non-theocentric) positions may bring the moral behaviour
and moral convictions of some individuals into serious doubt. Claims could be made that
such people always had an underlying theistic belief or motive for their moral position
and that their moral stance had not been an authentically self-reflective and personally
responsible one. For example, such claims were made about the philosopher Antony
Flew, a lifelong atheist who was said to have abandoned his avowed atheism to become
a deist as he neared the end of his life.69 This claim was used to attempt to discredit
68
Crimmins, James E., "Jeremy Bentham", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta ed. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/bentham/
69 Grimes, William. “Obituary: Antony Flew, Philosopher and Ex-Atheist, Dies at 87.” New York: The New York Times Company. Published April 16, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/arts/17flew.html?_r=0/ Web.
49
some of his life’s work, or to claim his life and work were related to God.70
Controversial claims like these that have been levelled against Antony Flew are
problematic when the individual in question cannot be queried personally, and the claims
about them hence cannot be fully credited or disputed. However, they can cast a
plausible doubt on the moral position and motives of individuals. Claims of this type
might bring into question whether people such as Joseph Rotblat would truly have
represented a non-ordinary and self-responsible morality of the kind advocated for here.
Claims that he reverted to any type theocentric belief system or metaphysical worldviews
that informed his moral conceptions cannot be made about Joseph Rotblat, who died on
August 31, 2005 at the age of 96.71 Any claim to this effect can be disabused based on
first-person accounts from people who knew him personally.
At a symposium hosted at Simon Fraser University in 2014 titled “Peace and the
Environment: A Symposium Exploring the Legacy and Insights of Six Nobel Peace Prize
Laureates” I had the opportunity to meet Professor John Finney, a participant at the
symposium who presented on Joseph Rotblat. Prof. Finney was a colleague of Joseph
Rotblat in the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs organization and is
an Executive Committee member as trustee of British Pugwash Trust.72 He was also a
personal friend of Dr. Rotblat until the time of Rotblat’s death. I inquired of Professor
Finney whether he knew if Dr. Rotblat recanted his agnostic position, or made any
70 Strobel, Lee. Antony Flew on God and Atheism. Video Interview. California: San Bruno.
Youtube Inc. Feb 11, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHUtMEru4pQ/ 71
Jones. G.O. “Joseph Rotblat Obituary.” Aug 31, 2005. The Guardian News. Sept. 2, 2005. Guardian News and Media Limited. 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/sep/02/obituaries.obituaries
72 British Pugwash Trust. http://britishpugwash.org/what-is-pugwash/british-pugwash-trust/
50
reference or claim to have taken any personal view, or attributed any of his actions or
life’s work to the existence of God or religion as a source of his ethical actions, either at
the time he quit the bomb project, or at any time later in his life. Professor Finney stated
that “I got the impression that he was neutral to religion and that it did not play a
significant part in defining his ethical stance.” 73
In later correspondence Professor Finney also informed me that he asked my
question of Professor Robert Hinde (Executive Committee member of British Pugwash)
who worked closely with Joseph Rotblat and coauthored a book with him.74 Professor
Hinde replied to Professor Finney that he "could not remember him ever raising religion
in a significant way." Professor Finney also graciously shared a contact for Professor
Christopher (Kit) Hill, who authored a book75 about Joseph Rotblat and was a close
personal friend, and who knew him from 1960 up until the time of his death. Professor
Hill responded stating that “I never got a hint that his decisions and way of life were
specifically tied in to a particular formal religion."
Further confirmation came from Dr. Tom Milne (Trustee, British Pugwash Trust)
who worked as Joseph Rotblat’s personal assistant in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Dr.
Milne worked closely with him and was a personal friend. Dr. Milne has shared that “as
far as I know he did not hold any religious beliefs, either at the time of the Manhattan
project or later in life.” There is also confirmation from Sally Milne (Executive Committee,
PeaceJam, British Pugwash). Sally is Tom Milne’s mother and who took over as
73
Personal email correspondence(s). Feb/Mar. 2014. Cited with permission June 2016. 74 Hinde, Robert A, and Rotblat, Joseph. War No More: Eliminating Conflict in the Nuclear Age.
(London and Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press. 2003) 75
Hill, Kit. Professor Pugwash: The Man Who Fought Nukes. (U.K.: Ryelands Publishing. 2008)
51
Professor Rotblat’s personal assistant at Pugwash when Tom left after completing his
PhD to work in education. Sally Milne remained Joseph Rotblat’s assistant and his close
personal friend up to the time of his death. Mrs. Milne affirmed that Joseph Rotblat
described himself as an agnostic and a humanist up to the end of his life. She added
that “his morality was always a very personal one, not based on any religion or particular
teaching, but based on trying to do good in the world and make it a better place.”
Considering the autobiographical information that Joseph Rotblat gave about
himself in the movie “The Strangest Dream,” along with his personal history and writings,
and combined with the consensus of the many people who knew him professionally and
personally, it is evident that his non-ordinary moral stance can be aligned with the
conception of self-reflective moral principles in the Nietzsche/de Waal concept, and his
actions were compelled by his sense of personal responsibility as reflected in the
Declaration of Human Responsibilities. His lifelong engagement with nuclear
disarmament and the eradication of nuclear weapons shows that his moral stance and
reasoning were, and remain unimpeachable.
From the magnitude and far-reaching implications of his actions throughout his
life for all humanity, it can be argued that Joseph Rotblat possessed a level of moral
maturity and integrity that is exemplary. While his example is perhaps anomalous, it
shows that a normative secular morality can exist and is attainable. Sally Milne summed
up his moral stance and life philosophy succinctly when she wrote of Joseph Rotblat that
“One of his dearest quotes when faced with difficulties was, “Remember your humanity
and forget the rest.” Joseph Rotblat stands as a pre-eminent moral exemplar. I will now
continue my “case studies” of exemplars with Fridtjof Nansen.
52
Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Nansen is distinguished as a positive moral exemplar having received the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.76 Nansen was a Polar Explorer,77 adventurer, and a
humanitarian with many remarkable achievements to his credit. He was awarded the
Nobel Prize for
. . . his work in the repatriation of prisoners of war, his work for the
Russian refugees, his work in aiding the millions in Russia struggling
against famine, and now his work for the refugees in Asia Minor and
Thrace. Although this activity has been in progress for only a few years,
its extent and significance are such that the Nobel Committee has felt it
worthy of the great distinction of the Nobel Peace Prize.78
The Nobel Committee credited Nansen for five great humanitarian efforts that he
undertook at the behest of the International Red Cross, the League of Nations, the
Government of Greece, and the United Nations.79 Information in his biography states
that “[h]is father, a prosperous lawyer, was a religious man with a clear conception of
personal duty and moral principle. . .” 80 He was influenced by his father’s worldview, but
did not share his father’s religious beliefs. Nansen affirmed his father’s influence when
76
Nansen, Fridtjof. “Biography.” Peace Prize Laureates. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1922. Sweden: Nobel Media AB 2016 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1922/nansen-bio.html
77 Greve, Marit. Fridtjof Nansen. Margaret Ellson Davies., trans. Oslo: Aschehoug.1994. Cited in Nansen, Fridtjof. Polar Explorers. Fram Museum, Oslo, Norway. http://www.frammuseum.no/Polar-Heroes/Main-Heroes/Fridtjof-Nansen.aspx/
78 Nansen, Fridtjof. “Press Release.” Peace Prize Laureates. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1922. Sweden: Nobel Media AB 2016 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1922/press.html/
79 Nansen, “Biography.” Ibid.
80 Ibid.
53
he said: “By nature I am weak, what character I have stems from my strict upbringing.” 81
In researching Nansen to discover his motives, I found no documented evidence
that his motives or actions were for any reason other than to succour the suffering of
humanity; in particular of humanly caused suffering as the result of wars, displacements,
and famines related to war. He had no religious motives of his own: Nansen was a self-
declared lifelong agnostic who eschewed theocentric worldviews. He quoted Ralph
Waldo Emerson82 in a speech titled “Science and the purpose of life,” in which he said,
“. . . the religion of one age is, as a rule, the literary entertainment of the next. . . ” 83
Nansen also eschewed commonly held notions typified in theocentric world views:
In his younger years he dismissed the metaphysical concept of the soul.
Almost as a point of defiance he had, through his choice of theme for this
doctorate when a student of zoology, studied the central nervous system
of lower animals. He wanted to see whether there was any place where a
“soul” could exist . . . [Later] he thought that man had both intellect and
intelligence and that man had spirit. . . . [he] drew attention to this
presence of spirit and conscience as one of the most powerful forces in
the human condition.” . . . Fridtjof Nansen was an agnostic.84
Organizations and governments often called upon him to assist with difficult
problems as a man capable of doing the most challenging of humanitarian work ably and
81
Christophersen, Chr. A. R. “Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930) A Life in the Service of Science and Humanity.” Nansen Dialogue Network. Norway: Lillehammer. 2015.http://www.nansen-dialogue.net/index.php/en/who-are-we/who-is-fridtjof-nansen/
82 Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Writings. Robinson, David M. ed. Boston: Beacon Press. 2004) 250.
83 Nansen, Fridtjof. “Science and the Purpose of Life." Speech published by the Rationalist Press Association, 1909, cited in A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists. https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/item/14590-fridtjof-nansen.
84 Greve, Fridtjof Nansen. Ibid.
54
successfully. Nansen was an academic, scientist, explorer and adventurer. It is arguably
the case that humanitarian endeavours commandeered his time, of which he gave
abundantly and for no apparent reasons other than to succour human need and
suffering. His empathy and compassion were borne in his actions. His moral intelligence
appears to have had no reserve. Nansen was a positive moral exemplar who embodied
and reflected the moral principles and individual responsibility aligned with the
conception advanced here. Another case study is Wangari Maathai.
Wangari Maathai
Wangari Muta Maathai is the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate85 “for her
contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.” 86 and for her
humanitarian work. She is distinguished as the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace
Prize. Maathai started a grass-roots movement to counter deforestation in her native
country of Kenya through encouraging women to plant trees in what came to be called
the “Green Belt Movement” (GBM), for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize. Her
GBM initiative spread to numerous African countries, and it is estimated that
approximately twenty million trees have been planted on farms, school, and church
lands by women.87
Maathai’s work encompasses and encourages democracy, human rights (for
85
Maathai, Wangari “Facts." Peace Prize Laureates. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2004. Nobel Media AB 2014. 12 Jan 2016. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2004/maathai-facts.html
86 Ibid.
87 Maathai, Wangari. “Biographical." Peace Prize Laureates. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2004. Nobel Media AB 2014. 12 Jan 2016. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2004/maathai-bio.html
55
women in particular but for all people generally), and environmental conservation.
Responding to what she viewed as a depletion of the resources of earth that carried
devastating consequences, of which people are part, the right moral action in her view
was to capitalize on and spend her accomplishments and lifetime in the restoration of a
more life-sustaining and natural balance between humans and the environment. Maathai
acted in a way that is and was life supporting, species supporting, and reflected the
moral dimensions as described by Nietzsche/de Waal which anticipates the needs of not
only of humans, but of all species in a way that recognizes the essential dependencies
and mutuality necessary to life.
Maathai’s views and actions are not esoteric. They are pragmatic in that they are
properly understood to assert the essential connection to nature underlying and
supporting all life. The interconnectedness of moral and ethical values in relation to
nature as a means of survival and furthering life was the source of her actions. Maathai
is clear about her understanding of these concerns and the importance of them when
she states:
I came to realize that the work of the GBM was driven by certain
intangible values. These values were: love for the environment; a
gratitude and respect for Earth's resources; a capacity to empower and
better oneself; and a spirit of service and volunteerism. Together, these
values encapsulate the intangible, subtle, nonmaterialistic aspects of the
GBM (Green Belt Movement) as an organization. They enabled us to
continue working, even through the difficult times. Of course, I'm aware
that such values are not unique to the Green Belt Movement. They are
universal; they can't be touched or seen. We cannot place a monetary
value on them: in effect, they are priceless. These values are not
contained within certain religious traditions. Neither does one have to
56
profess a faith in a divine being to live by them. However, they do seem to
be part of the our human nature and I'm convinced that we are better
people because we hold them, and that humankind is better off with them
than without them. Where these values are ignored, they are replaced by
vices such as selfishness, corruption, greed, and exploitation.88
In attempting to apply a term other than the word “moral” to Maathai’s sentiments and
pragmatic aims, the word “wholesome” is apt, where the word has the meaning:
“promoting or indicating physical, mental, or moral health.” 89 Maathai did not derive her
morality from God or any theocentric views. She appears to have responded to the
vicissitudes of life on a deeper and more fundamental level connected to the earth and
to life, much as Joseph Rotblat and Fridtjof Nansen did, and from an internal locus. Her
motives are clear when she reflected that she had undertaken her actions based on an
inner drive, without making any attributions when she asserted: “However, I never
differentiated between activities that might be called ‘spiritual’ and those that might be
termed ‘secular.’” 90
Here Maathai demonstrates support for the principle that true morality in all
cases must seek the greatest good for all, and the greatest good that universalises to all
life and all that which we term nature - all species and the environment. She also
demonstrates the thoughtful and reflective sense of responsibility that was evident
through her actions, and particularly in her concern for nature and the desire to enable
life to flourish. In what may be seen and considered a holistic approach to secular
88
Maathai, Wangari. Replenishing The Earth: Spiritual Values For Healing Ourselves And The World. (Random House Inc., 2010) 13-14.
89 “Wholesome.” The Concise Oxford Dictionary. Ibid.
90 Maathai, Replenishing the Earth. Ibid.
57
morality and to life, Maathai’s actions and leadership affirm her as a positive moral
exemplar. She strongly displays the moral principles and sense of personal responsibility
found in a comprehensive conception of secular morality. Secular morality is also
exemplified through the experiences of philosopher Alphonso Lingis.
The Anonymous Exemplar
The philosopher Alphonso Lingis in The Community of Those Who Have Nothing
in Common relates a personal account of events that happened to him during his travels
in India, and of being taken into the care of a man who saved his life. His experience had
a profound effect on his views of morality and typical moral constructs that, in fact,
transcended his existing moral understanding as he recounts his story:
One night, sick for weeks in a hut in Mahabalipuram in the south of India,
I woke out of the fevered stupor of days to find that the paralysis that had
incapacitated my arms was working its way into my chest. I stumbled out
into the starless darkness of the heavy night. On the shore, gasping for
air, I felt he was naked, save for a threadbare loincloth, and all I could
understand was that he was from Nepal. How he had come here, to the
far south of the Indian subcontinent - farther by far than I who, equipped
with credit card, could come here from my home in a day by jet plane - I
had no way of learning from him.
He seemed to have nothing, sleeping on the sands, alone. He engaged in
a long conversation, unintelligible to me, with a fisherman awakened from
a hut at the edge of the jungle and finally loaded me in an outrigger canoe
to take me, I knew without understanding any of his words, through the
monsoon seas to the hospital in Madras sixty-five miles away. My fevered
eyes contemplated his silent and expressionless face, from time to time
illuminated by the distant flashes of lightning as he labored in the canoe,
58
and it was completely clear to me that should the storm become violent,
he would not hesitate to save me, at the risk of his own life.
We disembarked at a fishing port, where he put me first on a rickshaw
and then on a bus for Madras, and then he disappeared without a word
or glance at me. He surely had no address but the sands; I would never
see him again. I shall not cease seeing what it means to come to be
bound with a bond that can never be broken or forgotten, what it means
to become a brother. How indecent to speak of such things in the
anonymous irresponsibility of a writing he cannot read and a tongue he
cannot understand ! We know ourselves in our mortality.91
Lingis argues that there is a universal ”brotherhood” of man and humanity that is an
expression of a “natural” morality that exists in all people and is communicated and
experienced as a phenomenon independent of language, status, possessions, or beliefs
such as religions. It resides in our most fundamental existence and for Lingis, relates to
our common mortality or a “community of death” as he terms it.92 He notes that we all
face death eventually, and in recognition of this fact, he argues that we must all respect
our own life and the lives of others at the deepest level of existence so that we can make
the best of our lives while we may.
Thus, we are linked by our common humanity as a part of nature as the strongest
common bond to life – that we seek life before it is no more for us. Through recognition
of this deepest urge to live well, Lingis argues that we find a commonality of good that
can emerge when it is not inhibited. In this Lingis is arguably referring to a notion
91
Lingis, Alphonso. The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common. (Bloomington and Indianapolis. Indian University Press. 1994) 158 - 159.
92 Ibid., 159.
59
suggested by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that humankind is good by nature but is
corrupted by society.93 German psychiatrist Friedrich Perls refers to this “good” as
“actualization” by which he means that all living things will naturally grow to fulfill their
natural imperative to become moral beings provided their environment supports this, and
they are not interfered with in their development – “corrupted” if we accept Rousseau.94
The anonymous exemplar may either not be corrupted by society, or perhaps
had refused to be affected by any corrupting forces. It may also be the case that he had
no influences brought to bear on him at all, and that he was simply a man who was in
tune with nature, and understood intuitively that all living things deserve dignity and wish
to survive and to thrive. Alternately, he may have had religious convictions, or not, or
perhaps a tribal or indigenous spirituality. It is impossible to know with any certainty. It is
arguably true that the principles advocated in this work were operative in this man, and it
is certain that his sense of personal responsibility was operative insofar as it is indicated
by the extraordinary efforts he humbly undertook on behalf of Lingis.
No other inferences or attributions can be made about the anonymous man;
nothing is known of whether there was anything to compel him except empathy and
compassion for a person suffering and in need. This is evident in view of the fact he did
so at risk to himself during a storm, and with the additional responsibility of using the
presumably borrowed canoe of the fisherman. Notable, too, is the second anonymous
93 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract and Discourses. trans. G.D.H. Cole. (London
and Toronto: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1923) 203. 94 Perls, Friedrich S., M.D., Ph.D. In and Out The Garbage Pail. (Lafayette, California: Real
People Press. 1969) No Page Numbers.
60
man who, according to Lingis, unhesitatingly and unselfishly lent his canoe, if it was his -
his lifeblood presumably - to the anonymous man to use to save Lingis’s life.95
While the locus of motives of these men cannot be known precisely, their actions
suggest that they were in accord with the moral principles advocated, of which Lingis
was recipient. The profound effect that being the beneficiary of morality of this kind had
on Lingis is evident in his description of the impression it left on him, to have had the
experience of his fundamental humanity recognized and to feel himself a “brother of
man.” Moreover, Lingis, through the acknowledgement he gave his benefactor when he
refers to the indecency of writing of a man he “knows cannot read or understand,”
displayed a profound sense of respect and responsibility for the acts of kindness
received. It is precisely this sort of mutual respect (reciprocity) and empathy for the life of
another that is articulated and affirmed by the moral principles in the Nietzsche/de Waal
and personal responsibility constellation. I will now turn to negative exemplars to
illustrate cases where morality is seen to have failed.
Negative Exemplars
Negative exemplars are individuals who have demonstrated lack of ideal types of
moral insight and understandings such as compassion, reciprocity, mercy, and a lack of
insights, awareness, motives, or courage in their ethical conduct. Exemplars are
examined to discover whether evidence of theocentric morality is present or absent, and
whether the moral principles and responsibilities can be shown to have been absent.
95
Lingis cannot make this clear as in his own words he did not know. From the context it seems more probable than not, but there is no certainty.
61
J. Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer was a theoretical Physicist born in the U.S. His parents
were of Jewish descent, but did not actively follow Judaism. Robert Oppenheimer did not
receive a Nobel Prize as the positive exemplars did; however, he received nominations
for a Nobel Prize for Physics three times; in 1945, 1951 and 1967.96 Oppenheimer was
the scientific director for the Manhattan Project overseeing the efforts of the vast
scientific community working at Los Alamos to build the Atomic Bomb.
On any account Oppenheimer was an intellectually brilliant man with reasoning
capabilities beyond those of most people, demonstrated by his list of accomplishments
working within science and in conjunction with research and teaching at Universities.97
Unlike Joseph Rotblat, Oppenheimer remained with the Manhattan project as did all the
other scientific staff once it was known that the Nazis had abandoned their efforts to
build an atomic weapon. He was at the same dinner party as Joseph Rotblat when a
conversation took place. Dr. Rotblat relates the occasion:
General Leslie Groves, when visiting Los Alamos, frequently came to the
Chadwicks for dinner and relaxed palaver. During one such conversation
Groves said that, of course, the real purpose in making the bomb was to
subdue the Soviets. (Whatever his exact words, his real meaning was
clear.)98
96 Cassidy, David. J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century. (New York: Pi Press. 2005) 178.
97 Ibid., 151-152.
98 Rotblat, “Leaving the Bomb Project.” Ibid., 18.
62
Oppenheimer would have been fully aware that the bomb was not needed to end
the war, and might have anticipated the consequences of continuing to supervise
building the bomb having scientifically based knowledge of its destructive potential, and
evidence from preliminary tests. Rotblat also relates that Niels Bohr, a senior scientist
and contemporary of Oppenheimer, was aware of and concerned with the continuation
of building the bomb and the multifaceted threats and its consequences. Dr. Rotblat
stated: “Sometimes Bohr stayed on and talked to me about the social and political
implications of the discovery of nuclear energy and of his worry about the dire
consequences of a nuclear arms race between East and West which he foresaw.” 99
It is impossible to credit that a man of Oppenheimer’s intellect and position of
responsibility, along with his close working relationship with Groves, did not understand
the implications and the critical nature of the problems that would result from completing
the bomb – and that he either suggested that the project end or be limited, rather than
share responsibility for actions that could not be redeemed. Oppenheimer did not
display evidence of any of the concerns and wisdom seen with Rotblat and Bohr.
Alternately, it might have been that he had objections but did not feel he was in a
position to make any assertions about the possibility of terminating the project, or leaving
his position at the project; however, there is no evidence that this was the case at that
time. He appears to have been single-minded in his desire to succeed with the bomb,
despite the changing motivations for building it. One possible reason he did not leave
might have been that he was aware of the agenda to subdue the Russians from the
outset. In this case, learning that the Nazis were not building one would have no bearing.
99
Rotblat, Ibid., 18.
63
Before joining the Manhattan project, Oppenheimer had religious leanings toward
Hinduism. He learned Sanskrit, read the Bhagavad Gita in that language, and claimed it
was what most shaped his philosophy in life.100 It is interesting that he had religious
leanings and followed the Hindu Holy Scriptures, given the position he was in, but that
his religiosity and the morality inherent in the Gita (Dharma) seem to have not influenced
his actions. With a full awareness and anticipation of the destructive power of the bomb
he had great responsibility in creating, he appears to suffer some sort of moral
confusion, or at least a foreboding of the wrong he was precipitating when he cited a
verse from the Bhagavad Gita two days before the test:
In battle, in the forest, at the precipice in the mountains, On the dark great
sea, in the midst of javelins and arrows, In sleep, in confusion, in the
depths of shame, The good deeds a man has done before defend him.101
Oppenheimer arguably appears to be attempting to pre-empt or assuage his conscience
and his own pending moral fall by defending himself on the basis that any good deeds
he had done before would balance or excuse what would follow. The day of the first test
of the Atomic bomb at the site named the “Trinity Site” he claimed to have thought of a
verse from the Bhagavad Gita (XI, 12): “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst
at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. . . .” 102
100
Hijiya, James A "The Gita of Robert Oppenheimer" Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. . (June 2000.) 144 (2). Archived from the original on May 15, 2013. Retrieved
December 16, 2013. https://amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/Hijiya.pdf 101
Hollinger, David A. "Afterward". In Carson, Cathryn; Hollinger, David A. Reappraising Oppenheimer: Centennial Studies and Reflections. (Berkeley, California: Office for History of Science and Technology, Univ. of California. 2005) 385–390.
102 Jungk, Robert. Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists. (New York: Harcourt Brace. 1958) 201.
64
From this evidence it appears there was a moral confusion by which he seemed
to be implying that he was of a mind that the terrible effects of the bomb were
splendorous and somehow related to a Godly divinity. Yet he had explicit knowledge of
the intention of the bomb which was designed to kill large populations of people in
Japan, and to exercise control over millions of others in Russia (i.e., Soviet Union) if
Groves was to be believed. It is difficult to know in retrospect with accuracy whether he
was justifying a terrible instrument of destruction as splendorous, or was elated in
enjoying the fruits of his labour in seeing the magnitude of the results, or both.
Oppenheimer’s sense of jubilance was noticed by physicist and Nobel winner
Isidor Rabi, who wrote "I'll never forget his walk; I'll never forget the way he stepped out
of the car . . . his walk was like High Noon . . . this kind of strut. He had done it." 103 We
may not know what his true moral stance was, or how he perceived of himself as an
agent of such destructive power once he had witnessed it. Following the tests of the
bomb, there was an abundance of evidence about its terrible destructive capacity.
When Groves had stated that the political purpose of the bomb was to subdue
the Soviets, Oppenheimer would have been able to surmise that the bomb would have
to be used against populations in order to make apparent the threat that the U.S. wanted
to pose to the Soviets. That would require a demonstration of its destructive capacity
and killing potential. Therefore, Oppenheimer had to have known the bomb would be
used against a population to “prove” its power, and it was, with horrific consequences.
103
Monk, Ray. Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center. (New York; Toronto: Doubleday. 2012) 456–457.
65
Years later, after much personal turmoil in his life, in 1965 he appeared on a
television broadcast and cited another verse from the Gita, in which he appears to be
deeply remorseful for his actions and part in creating the bomb:
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few
people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the
Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the
Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-
armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.’104
Despite what appears to be his later moral misgivings, there is evidence that
reason alone cannot reliably provide a strong moral grounding or guarantee moral
agency and ethical actions. While it may be the case that for many reasons he felt he
could not leave the bomb project, or he had to remain for political or other reasons that
may not be evident, there is evidence that Oppenheimer did not always think in any
strong moral terms or exercise his moral autonomy or responsibility. Joseph Rotblat, in
his essay “Leaving the Bomb Project” shows that Oppenheimer was prepared to commit
crimes against humanity of kinds that were not strictly related to the bomb project, or
using the bomb. Instead, he proposed something sinister of his own design. Rotblat
wrote:
Recently I came across a document released under the Freedom of
Information Act. It is a letter, dated May 25, 1943, from Robert
Oppenheimer to Enrico Fermi, on the military use of radioactive materials,
specifically, the poisoning of food with radioactive strontium. The Smyth
104
Oppenheimer, Robert J. "Now I am become death.” Television Broadcast. 1965. The Decision to Drop the Bomb. National Science Digital Library. 2015. San Diego: AJ Software & Multimedia. http://www.atomicarchive.com/Movies/Movie8.shtml/
66
Report mentions such use as a possible German threat, but
Oppenheimer apparently thought the idea worthy of consideration, and
asked Fermi whether he could produce the strontium without letting too
many people into the secret.
He went on: "I think we should not attempt a plan unless we can poison
food sufficient to kill a half a million men." I am sure that in peacetime
these same scientists would have viewed such a plan as barbaric; they
would not have contemplated it even for a moment. Yet during the war it
was considered quite seriously and, I presume, abandoned only because
it was technically infeasible. 105
This letter compels a question whether Oppenheimer had considered the long-term
consequences of using radioactive weapons of this sort, or what the implications would
be to people and to the environment at large. The crucial question is how such moral
shortcomings could exist in man as intellectually gifted as Oppenheimer was.
Robert Oppenheimer is seen to have been morally confused and morally dis-
responsible; he appears to have intentionally ignored morality evidenced through his
own actions and words, yet he appears variously to have had deep misgivings about the
morality of his actions and what was being done, and his direct responsibility for it, while
in contrast citing his religious allegiance in what appears to be a glorification of the bomb
in likening it to divinity. The morality he interpreted or derived - or perhaps misinterpreted
- from the Bhagavad Gita contravenes the moral principles that hold that morality should
be life-supporting, life preserving, and life enhancing. With the war emergency no longer
imminent, Oppenheimer could have made the same choice as Rotblat, but he did not.
105
Rotblat, “Leaving the Bomb Project.” Ibid., 18.
67
Oppenheimer’s actions associated with the building of the bomb aside, which are
deeply problematic, and his willingness to abandon his humanity to seek ways of killing
people by radioactive poisoning and only abandoning the plan due to its infeasibility, are
clearly immoral and perhaps amoral in the context of the moral principles defined in this
work. There is no evidence of motives that relate to Nietzsche’s cornerstone of morality,
and he showed no empathy or compassion except in a retrospect. Robert
Oppenheimer’s words and his citing of the Bhagavad Gita at critical times suggest that
he had some level of consciousness of a moral awareness, though neither his religious
beliefs nor his personal responsibility compelled him to make different choices. I now
turn to another case study of a negative moral exemplar, Richard Feynman.
Richard Feynman
Richard P. Feynman was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize
Laureate in Physics in 1965.106 His parents were non-religious and non-practising
Ashkenazi Jewish people from Russia and Poland107 and he declared himself an atheist
from an early age.108 Feynman was widely regarded as a genius, with an extensive
number of achievements and accolades in science and teaching to his credit including
the Albert Einstein Award (1954, Princeton); the Einstein Award (Albert Einstein Award
106
Feynman, Richard. “Facts.” Peace Prize Laureates. Nobel Peace Prize. 1965. Nobel Media AB. 2016. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-facts.html
107 Gleick, James. Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman. (New York: Vintage. 1993) 25. cited in http://www.nobel-winners.com/Physics/richard_phillips_feynman.html
108 Feynman, Richard P., Ralph Leighton, ed. “What Do You Care What Other People Think?”: Further Adventures of a Curious Character. (W. W. Norton & Co. 1988) 25.
68
College of Medicine) and the Lawrence Award (1962).109 Feynman joined the Manhattan
Project in 1943 at the request of the U.S. government, and worked with other scientists
in building the bomb. Richard Feynman is a unique exemplar since in 1981 he described
his actions succinctly and transparently for his moral failings in a taped interview aired
on the British Broadcasting Corporation Television “Horizons” series.110
In the interview he confers his experience of his morality that related to his work
on the bomb, and his delayed reaction to the realization of the questions and concerns
of individual responsibility and morality after the bombs were dropped on Japan. In his
own words, he acted immorally and shirked any moral responsibility despite having an
acute awareness of the destructive capacity of the bomb and its portent for the future.
Feynman explicated his moral orientation most exactly and forcefully from his
assessment of his actions in retrospect:
There was also the problem, of course, of any moral thing involving
war. I wouldn't have much to do with that, but it kinda scared me
when I realized what the weapon would be, and that since it might be
possible, it must be possible. There was nothing that I knew that indicated
that if we could do it they couldn't do it, and therefore it was very
important to try to cooperate.
[In early 1943 Feynman joined Oppenheimer's team at Los Alamos.] With
regard to moral questions, I do have something I would like to say about
109
Feynman, Richard. “Biography.” Peace Prize Laureates. Nobel Peace Prize 1965. Nobel
Media AB 2016. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-bio.html/
110 Feynman, Richard. The Pleasure of Finding things out. The best short works of Richard P. Feynman. Video. British Broadcasting Corporation. Horizon Program. 1981 -1982 Min:16:00 to 20:48 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p018dvyg
69
it. The original reason to start the project, which was that the Germans
were a danger, started me off on a process of action which was to try to
develop this first system at Princeton and then at Los Alamos, to try to
make the bomb work. All kinds of attempts were made to redesign it to
make it a worse bomb and so on. It was a project on which we all worked
very, very hard, all co-operating together. And with any project like that
you continue to work trying to get success, having decided to do it. But
what I did - immorally I would say - was to not remember the reason that I
said I was doing it, so that when the reason changed, because Germany
was defeated, not the singlest thought came to my mind at all about that,
that that meant now that I have to reconsider why I am continuing to do
this. I simply didn't think, okay?
[On 6 August 1945 the atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima.] The
only reaction that I remember - perhaps I was blinded by my own reaction
- was a very considerable elation and excitement, and there were parties
and people got drunk and it would make a tremendously interesting
contrast, what was going on in Los Alamos at the same time as what was
going on in Hiroshima. I was involved with this happy thing and also
drinking and drunk and playing drums sitting on the hood of - the bonnet
of - a Jeep and playing drums with excitement running all over Los
Alamos at the same time as people were dying and struggling in
Hiroshima.111
Here Feynman makes all the observations relevant to this analysis of moral principles
and personal responsibility. First, he stated that he wanted and took no responsibility for
any moral aspect of his part in the bomb or the war despite clearly recognizing the
exquisite danger of this particular weapon. He then states there was a further moral
problem – he notes this when he mentions that they wanted to make a “worse” (more
111
Feynman, Richard. The Pleasure of Finding things out. The best short works of Richard P. Feynman. Jeffrey Robins, ed. (Cambridge: Helix Books – Perseus Books. 1999) 9-11.
70
destructive) bomb. Then, he plainly stated that he acted immorally when they knew the
Germans were no longer building a bomb, and he did nothing to change his course of
action or moral direction claiming that despite this knowledge he “simply didn’t think.”
Lastly, Feynman seemed to come to a belated realization of the profound depth
of the immorality of his own behaviour where he stated he was elated, excited, drunk
and happy at the result of the effects and devastation of the bomb, until it dawned on
him the extent of the death and terrible suffering it had caused to civilian populations in
Hiroshima. His comment that it “was an interesting contrast” could be a lack of empathy,
or at least an un-empathetic way to state it. He continued in the interview to discuss his
strong reaction and depression in response to his part in creating the bomb, and the
terrible and persistent threat that it posed to humanity thereafter; the fact that the total
annihilation of life was possible with weapons such as these:
I had a very strong reaction after the war of a peculiar nature - it may be
from just the bomb itself and it may be for some other psychological
reasons, I'd just lost my wife or something, but I remember being in New
York with my mother in a restaurant, immediately after [Hiroshima], and
thinking about New York, and I knew how big the bomb in Hiroshima was,
how big an area it covered and so on, and I realized from where we were
- I don't know, 59th Street - that to drop one on 34th Street, it would
spread all the way out here and all these people would be killed and all
the things would be killed and there wasn't only one bomb available, but it
was easy to continue to make them, and therefore that things were sort of
doomed because already it appeared to me—very early, earlier than to
others who were more optimistic - that international relations and the way
people were behaving were no different than they had ever been before
and that it was just going to go on the same way as any other thing and I
was sure that it was going, therefore, to be used very soon. So I felt very
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uncomfortable and thought, really believed, that it was silly: I would see
people building a bridge and I would say "they don't understand." I really
believed that it was senseless to make anything because it would all be
destroyed very soon anyway, but they didn't understand that and I had
this very strange view of any construction that I would see, I would always
think how foolish they are to try to make something. So I was really in a
kind of depressive condition.112
The question arises: How can an intellectual genius abdicate his moral
responsibility, or not be able to ”think” about the consequences of his actions despite the
evidence that he did in fact possess a moral center which he realized belatedly? A
related question would be to ask how it is that intellectual intelligence can be divorced
from moral intelligence in the way that I have indicated as a chief cause of the failure of
secular reason to become a source of morality. His candour is compelling, yet many
questions remain about how it was possible that he allowed himself to continue on a
path that was so perilous, which he recognized at the time when he stated he was
scared when he realized “what the weapon would be.” 113
Further, it is arguably true that he felt a deep compulsion to discuss his morality
and moral failings from the time he was involved with the bomb given the context of
being interviewed so many years later. Without being questioned by the interviewer, he
volunteered his entire story of his own free accord suggesting he had a deep and long
held remorse. His voluntary expurgation might arguably have been a kind of confession.
It is notable by its absence that he was not offering his discussion as a caution
112
Feynman, Ibid., 10-11. 113
Ibid., 9.
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specifically to other people, or specifically to other scientists, or to politicians: he was
explicitly concerned with his own actions and reactions and culpability. If he possessed a
sound moral center, how is it that his moral center was ignored at the time he and all
humanity needed it most?
The greater wisdom and morality would have suggested that once the imminent
threat that was the cause for building a bomb had ceased, that the much greater threat
to humanity and all species should cease as well. Insofar as that Feynman has related
his moral failings, he has indicated that the moral principles and personal responsibility
which I have argued for in this work were absent at the time they were needed. A
question arises as to what might have occurred if more of the scientists had chosen as
Joseph Rotblat did, and acted ethically rather than being complicit in building the bomb.
An interesting postscript is that Feynman stated plainly that he “didn’t have much
patience with what’s called the humanities even though in the university there were
humanities that you had to take.”114 The question arises as to what moral influences
might have been brought to bear if he had studied history and ethics and other subjects
in the arts and humanities before committing himself to an irrevocable act of history and
a lifetime of regret for his part in building the bomb.115 I now turn to the study of a
political figure whose moral compass is problematic.
114
Feynman, Ibid., 3-4. 115
While beyond the scope of this work, the question as to what use or good are the humanities in Universities may reveal or conceal some compelling information about the human condition and the essential value of the humanities. What if Feynman had studied the humanities?
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Robert McNamara
Robert McNamara was an American business executive who aspired to politics
and served as Secretary of Defence to the United States Government under Presidents
John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968. He was a follower of the
Presbyterian faith. During his tenure he was responsible for increasing the role of the
U.S. in the Vietnam War. He had served in the U.S. Army Air Forces from 1943 to 1946
during which time he attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. His main task was to do
statistical analysis of the efficiency of fighting the war with the use of chemical defoliants
Agent Orange and other “Rainbow” chemicals, bombs, and cannon.116 During his time as
Secretary of Defence, he was responsible for increasing the number of U.S. advisers
from 900 to 16,000, and troops to almost 535,000 by June 30, 1968 in Vietnam.117
Death totals of military personnel from the Vietnam war, which the US entered
on November 1, 1955, and ended on April 30, 1975, were 58,202 Americans including
those missing in action (MIA), 220,357 South Vietnamese, 851,000 North Vietnamese
and Vietcong, 4,407 Korean, 469 Australian and New Zealand (allies), 252 Thailand, and
it is estimated that Vietnamese civilian deaths were in the millions and continue to rise,
owing to the long term effects of the defoliants.118
The terrible legacy of chemical warfare and the use of a defoliant named “Agent
Orange” which contained a deadly toxin, affected U.S. military and civilian personnel,
116
Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam, a History. (New York: Penguin Books, 1997) 271. 117
Hanna, Peggy. Patriotism, Peace and Vietnam: A Memoir. (Ohio: Springfield. Left to Write. 2007) 113-115.
118 Ibid., 107.
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Allied military and civilian personnel, and the native peoples of North and South
Vietnam. Agent Orange continues to affect populations and the environment 41 years
after the end of the Vietnam War: Its contaminant, dioxin - now regarded as one of the
most toxic chemicals known to man - remains in Vietnam’s ecosystem in the soil and the
food supply. Nearly 4.8 million Vietnamese people have been exposed, causing 400,000
deaths. The associated illnesses include cancers, birth defects, skin disorders,
autoimmune diseases, liver disorders, psychosocial effects, neurological defects and
gastrointestinal diseases. According to the Red Cross of Vietnam, up to one million
people are currently disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange, 100,000 of
which are children.119 The United States National Academies of Science, Engineering,
and Medicine; the Institute of Medicine (IOM) continues to monitor and study the effects
of Agent Orange reporting in the most recent “Veterans and Agent Orange: Update
2010” 120 and recognizes the long term effects due to the use of such deadly chemicals.
In Errol Morris’s 2003 documentary The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the
Life of Robert S. McNamara, 121 McNamara explained that the moral problems which
arose from engaging in an “unwinnable war” were the result of grave errors of judgment:
Okay. Any military commander who is honest with himself, or with those
he's speaking to, will admit that he has made mistakes in the application
119
Center for Research on Globalization. “Vietnam’s Horrific Legacy: The Children of Agent Orange” Global Research News. May 26, 2015 http://www.globalresearch.ca/vietnams-horrific-legacy-the-children-of-agent-orange/5451862/
120 United States National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, The Institute of Medicine (IOM.) Report: Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2010. September 29, 2011. Last Updated: 8/19/2015. http://iom.nationalacademies.org/reports/2011/veterans-and-agent-orange-update-2010.aspx/
121 Morris, Errol. The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. Documentary. December 19, 2003 http://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow_transcript.html
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of military power. He's killed people unnecessarily - his own troops or
other troops - through mistakes, through errors of judgment. A hundred,
or thousands, or tens of thousands, maybe even a hundred thousand.
But, he hasn't destroyed nations.122
McNamara also went on to state that he had been a statistical analyst working for
General Curtis LeMay of the U.S. Army Air Force, the arm of the military that firebombed
civilian populations in Japan and later the dropping of the Atomic Bomb during World
War II. In what seems an almost cold and confused recollection of events, he related a
conversation he had with Curtis LeMay:
We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo — men, women
and children, Mr. McNamara recalled; some 900,000 Japanese civilians
died in all. “LeMay said, ‘If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been
prosecuted as war criminals.” “And I think he’s right. He - and I’d say I -
were behaving as war criminals.” “What makes it immoral if you lose and
not immoral if you win?” he [McNamara] asked. He found the question
impossible to answer.123
Here several of McNamara’s moral confusions are noteworthy: one is that McNamara
did not seem interested or capable of undertaking a statistical analysis of the moral
dimensions of the war or his significant part in it prior to commencing his fateful acts. His
chief regret, by all accounts, is that he failed at winning an “unwinnable” war in Vietnam.
From his comments, it appears that he remained under the impression so many years
122
Ibid. 123
McNamara, Robert S. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books. 1996. Print. Cited in Morris, Errol. The Fog of War. Documentary. December 19, 2003/. Weiner, Tim. Robert S. McNamara, Architect of a Futile War, Dies at 93 Cited in New York Times Newspaper. The New York Times Company. July 6, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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later that the war would have been “not immoral” provided they had won.
While McNamara appears to have experienced guilt or regret in his public
contrition over losing the war, and for lives lost immediate to the war that he was greatly
responsible for, there seems to be little or no concern for the longer term effects of the
emotional impact from death and destruction to the spheres of family and loved ones of
all the people that were killed or injured and who were irrevocably impacted. Also at
issue is the concern of the effects to people in service in the U.S. Military and the
general population of the U.S. and its allies. This includes civilian populations of Vietnam
and the enemy, and it appears there was little regard, if any at all, for the fauna or the
environment of Vietnam. McNamara’s logic seems to be that had the U.S. won the war
that these losses, and the grief and destruction would have been statistically acceptable
or unworthy or notice or concern - and moral in his terms - or at least, not immoral.
Robert McNamara is iconic of the negative exemplars: In his asking the question
what makes it immoral if a war is lost, and not immoral if it is won, there is a unique
opportunity for an insight into what is responsible for the failure of morality: Two factors
are especially noteworthy: one is that McNamara’s moral conceptions do not include
what is explicitly moral; instead he is only concerned with what qualifies as immoral (to
lose) or “not” immoral (to win.) There is no evidence of personal responsibility for one’s
moral thoughts and decisions, except in the negative – what is immoral and why. The
question of what is properly “moral” or constitutes ethical action is neither considered nor
apparent in McNamara’s thinking. The second and arguably most critical of points is that
McNamara, based on his own language and statements, does not realize that winning or
losing war is not the proper criterion: he misses the fact that war itself is a crime against
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life, and is itself immoral, and thus raises the question as to whether war can ever be
moral or ever truly necessary or just, or justifiable.
Whatever the stated purpose of war, it is aggression and violence, and in the
context of Nietzsche/de Waal/Einstein, abnegates the moral principles argued for in this
paper. In terms of morality there is no “Just war” there is only a “Just defense” according
to the dictates of nature, and the natural desire to “avoid pain and annihilation and to
survive and to thrive.” Here, a lack of awareness is plainly visible not only of the correct
moral dimensions of war for McNamara, but of his own failure to be able to reason
morally in a way that leads to the only life-supporting conclusions available or possible.
Any war is the complete failure of humanity to find or create solutions to the problems
that are the cause of wars. And with prodigious intellects like that of McNamara, the
question arises why and how such demonstrably powerful intellects fail to make these
connections, or have any awareness of the broader problems and moral concerns or
human suffering. Despite the moral confusion he experienced by his own admission and
from his own testimony, McNamara also clearly abrogated morality derived from his
professed Christian faith. He thus demonstrates a lack of fundamental moral principles
and of personal responsibility by taking refuge behind the impersonal in his appointed
role of Secretary of Defense during the war.
Summary Discussion of Exemplars
Examining the actions and the moral stance of positive exemplars shows there
are shared traits that are tested against the moral principles advanced from Nietzsche,
de Waal, and Einstein, and the ideal of self-reflective and self-responsible thought and
actions that are clearly operative. Each positive exemplar displays a high degree of
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personal responsibility and the wisdom of a depth of concern for their own humanity, the
humanity of others, of other species, and the environment. None professed motives
from theocentric imperatives, and none displayed indications of failures of reason viewed
in the context of the moral principles, or at all.
In examining each of the positive exemplars, the principles and notion of
responsibility have been shown to be universal to them - indicating that what is proposed
does in fact work, and may be operative on a wider scale – making it both a viable and
defensible proposition. In the case of the anonymous exemplar that saved Lingis, the
individualistic and personal nature and scope of his actions indicates the profound effect
the moral actions of one person may have on the life of another. The greatness shown in
this example of the intimacy of a moral action between two people is as significant as the
greatness of the other positive exemplars, and indicates and supports the case for the
importance that all people can be individually responsible for their own morality.
Negative exemplars in contrast, by their own actions and declarations shown in
evidence did not demonstrate the moral principles or personal responsibility advocated
for in this work, and they evidently did not exercise the self-reflective choice of personal
ethical orientations or behaviours, which resulted in their immoral actions. Shared traits
of negative exemplars are the immoral intentions and actions they refused to recognise,
or the refusal of personal responsibility at times it was imperative to forestall immoral
actions. In all cases negative exemplars acted contrary to the moral principles by which
they were assessed and some acted contrary to their religious backgrounds or religious
beliefs, and the moral imperatives from those authorities.
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In Robert Oppenheimer’s case, he appeared to be in conflict by a strong tension
of opposites between his moral center and his actions, and his religious/spiritual beliefs.
If he had no moral compass or moral center of his own, he may have been confused by
the conflicted dictates of his spiritual views, or his interpretations or misinterpretations of
them. However, the fact that he was arguably morally conflicted means, it seems, that
one pole of his psychological moral struggle was to act morally, which would have
required that he take responsibility for it, which he did not.
Richard Feynman articulated how his dispossession of responsibility for his
actions and his active thinking processes resulted in his later strong reaction to the
consequences and his moral abnegation of the nuclear weapon he had helped create. In
viewing the video interview and seeing his discomfiture, it is arguably true that not taking
responsibility for one’s moral and ethical actions had a very high cost for him, although
not as high as for the victims of the atomic bomb, or humanity at large.
For Robert McNamara, there is evidence of a professed disconnection among
the character traits that include his intellect and drive for success, an exclusion of his
religious grounding, his lack of moral intelligence showing difficulties with
comprehension of morality at a profound level that is beyond the scope of this work to
discuss.
This analysis is not intended as personal condemnation of any of the negative
exemplars in any sense. Rather, it is a condemnation of their actions or inactions, and of
the societies and cultures of belief that can arguably be seen to have contributed to the
compromise of their moral compasses, or prevented them in other ways from realizing
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their full moral potentials. The intention is only to attempt to examine and support the
moral propositions advanced here as part of a critical process in order to investigate
whether the principles and responsibility were present or absent. Furthermore, they are
indices of the potential viability and usefulness of what is proposed if it may be
disseminated. Indeed, the loss of moral capacities is a heavy burden for all humanity.
Here, we seek to learn from historical errors and either to inform people of their morality,
or seek to use these tragic examples as a form of moral exhortation.
Discussion of Viability
The proposed model of morality/ethics is one that is demonstrated to anticipate
and facilitate the transition from metaphysical and authoritarian sources of morality, to
morality and ethical actions with an internal locus. The model can provide a missing
essence for secular reason if the tenets of the UDHR, and the Nietzsche/de Waal and
Einstein/ethical axiom constructs are observed and enacted as individual personal
responsibilities. The integrity of this secular conception of morality compels me to the
conclusion that it is both viable and defensible based on the demonstrated evidence of
all the principles and sense of personal responsibility found in the positive exemplars.
With the empirical evidence of the positive exemplars, it is shown to provide an
alternative means of establishing new normative moral values, complete with the
reasons and method to attain it provided people can be educated in the necessity of it.
Its strength will come from the intention intrinsic to it: that people may challenge
and destabilize current moral views that are argued to have failed, and see the
advantage in becoming more fully human and humane, and decent. It can arguably help
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create a world where people’s best interests are known to be identical with those of all
humanity by learning that there is an alternative worldview that has the potential of
reducing conflict, and enhancing human relations independent of varying belief systems.
The conception of morality posited in this essay can be argued to be operative at a level
below that of individual or shared beliefs: It can be demonstrated to be effective through
reason and application, and requires no beliefs at all except knowledge of the necessity
to mature and become responsible. Here, necessity refers to the indispensability of the
natural imperative in the context of survival for people to become responsible in life. If all
means of psychological, ideological or material support were removed, many people
would not be able to stand on their own, independently, and survive and thrive. This is a
position of weakness, and dependency - not one of maturity and self-reliance.
The principles have the feature and advantage of being an integral conception
that does not require or admit of being dependent on moral commands from external
authority, but does not necessarily exclude moral knowledge from an external referent
such as a positive moral exemplar understood as a wise guide. This conception of
morality provides a self-test, combining rational and emotive criteria by which to
deliberate what is truly moral. It provides a method that confirms the outcomes of the
test, and encourages the intrinsic and internal self-referential locus of authority and
responsibility in order to effect the best moral judgments and actions.
Insofar as responsibility is operative from an internal locus of a personal moral
compass, it emphasizes responsibility over accountability, although both are important to
morality. Thus responsibility for moral or immoral acts cannot be externalized to any real
or imagined authority. It is intended to complement current moral codes to aid in the
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transition and evolution toward secular morality, as well as retain whatever necessary
protections are derived from the existing codifications of theocentric or legalistic morality
while the transition occurs.
A further indication of the viability of this model is anticipated in the potential
longitudinal project of encouraging the moral and responsible growth and maturity of
individuals of all ages, effecting trans-generational change. Patricia Churchland, in her
work “The Neurobiological Platform for Moral Values” states: “How do we get from
familial caring to broader community-wide values such as honesty, loyalty, and courage?
The answer has two inter-twined parts: learning by the young, and problem solving by
everyone.” 124 Here, the suggestion is that people of any age or disposition may learn.
Interestingly, each of the negative exemplars displayed a tendency for delayed
moral awareness, or a kind of latent morality perhaps. This suggests the possibility that
people do have innate tendencies for morality, which either remain undeveloped,
occluded, or become corrupted (cf. Rousseau.) Further, there is an intuitive sense that
people who may have a “latent” moral compass or sense at any age may benefit from
being exposed to the moral model proposed in order to develop or reveal their moral
being. If this is arguably true, there is an indication that exposing individuals to training
and education of an essential understanding of the “processes” of morality understood
as insights and understanding, as differentiated from, and opposed to teaching it as a
“product” as rules/commands, may yield positive results. Educating people to this model
124 Churchland, P.S. “The Neurobiological Platform for Moral Values.” Behavior 151. (p.291)
(2014) 283 – 296. Cited in de Waal, Frans, ed. Evolved Morality: The Biology and Philosophy of Human Conscience. Leiden, NLD: BRILL, 2014.
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at an early age may aid in a more integrated moral development preventing confusing
and corrupting influences from interfering with people’s natural tendency to be moral or
have “natural morality” during the formative years. It is arguably true that the best way
for the young to grow is by being in the company of, and through the examples of moral
exemplars.
However, in suggesting moral principles and individual responsibility as the
internal locus of morality I am seeking to imagine how to reverse a long historical pattern
and tendency for attachment to external loci of authority and the power of, and
submission to authority. As such, adult age or self-aware and self-responsible positive
exemplars for children are in short supply in mainstream populations to provide the
“environment” children need, as evidenced by the vast social/moral problems in the 21st
Century. Thus, it is arguably true that people of all ages must be learners, and the
general population needs to engage in ethical problem solving.
One criticism and limitation of the proposed model of secular morality is that
while this specific model is shown to be efficacious through examination of exceptional
positive exemplars, there are no empirical studies specifically relating to what is
proposed as a developmental or remedial model, and hence no data or longitudinal
effects have been collected or observed formally. With any soft evolution of human
consciousness, there is no expectation of rapid or revolutionary results. There has been
little change in moral codes and moral authority for approximately three millennia since
the emergence of the Old Testament Bible/Genesis in the Western world. Long held
methods and beliefs that provide homeostasis are often not relinquished, or change
accepted with facility, posing a further challenge.
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Transitions of moral consciousness can reasonably be conjectured to take
decades or centuries to show significant change. Another concern could be the
resistance to the notion of personal responsibility for those who would have difficulty
(emotionally or practically) for taking responsibility and who would experience it perhaps
as an imposition or a burden. Further, there may be resistance imposed from institutional
concerns (e.g., theocracies that do not want to relinquish their notions or authority), and
the unwillingness of people to abandon their allegiance to such types of organization.
However, I believe that if the appeal is broad enough, this will abate.
The interest of this work has been to engage the “problems of morality” and the
question of a missing element in secular reason that responded to my concerns of
authoritarian forms of morality and their diminution, and the claims that secular reason
had failed in its expectations. In responding to this question and concerns, I have
brought together related kinds of information from various discourses, disciplines, and
agencies and amalgamated them to essay a notion of universalising secular morality. I
have also attempted to respond to the need, intangibly expressed, of humanity in
transition and to meet the needs of a rapidly and perhaps radically changing and
globalizing world, and the needs of people who are required to adapt to changing
consciousness.
The question and challenge for secular reason has been in what way to envision
a missing element, and how to understand what underlies the process of enabling
people to become independent moral agents that are self-aware, and have the capacity
to be self-reflective in order to attain moral maturity and ethical agency. Throughout this
work I have attempted to propose a workable conception of morality and an ethic that
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seeks to provide a coherent and integral model of morality. In concluding, it may be
useful to reiterate the essence and elements of it here to bring the various aspects and
the intentions that compelled it together. In what may be termed a universal secular
morality, for lack of a better, it is as follows:
A universal secular morality binds reason to the dignity and intrinsic value of
people in an absolutist way that reflects the tenets of the UDHR. It is life supporting, life-
furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving, and perhaps species-rearing in a way that
is universally true for all people and never contingently true. Integral to it is that it
necessarily holds the two pillars of morality and our capacities for reciprocity-fairness
(Golden Rule) and empathy-compassion paramount as our inviolable emotional
referents. It stands in recognition of the ethical axiom that all humanity at its existential
core is fundamentally the same. It is realized in the knowledge that all people should
exercise their individual responsibility to affirm all these foundations, be self-reflective on
them, and deliberate their ethical actions as responsible moral agents.
Morality is a complex subject: no single treatment can provide a substantive
account of all aspects of what may constitute morality or all that is contingent upon it.
Having recognized that, it is arguably true that proposing a set of basic principles can
provide a referent in the quest for a post post-secular morality that reduces violence and
humanly caused suffering in the short term, and promotes human unity and peace in the
longer term.
To suggest that people accept the moral principles and responsibilities cannot
transfer morality from one type of authority to another. Instead, it is intended to merely
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recognize a fundamental truth of nature: That we are all responsible for our own lives,
and our morality is essential to our ability to survive and to flourish, extending to
recognizing that the most efficacious way to live is benignly and in truth. The morality
proposed does not represent a system of rules; rather, it is a mode of consciousness
and way of thinking about oneself and others, and the world we all live in. To inform
people that they must be responsible is itself an act of responsibility in working to
provide people with life skills and knowledge that can enhance and preserve their lives
more efficaciously. In this sense it is arguably a human good that if all people would
observe and practice creates a better world for all in a way that is an expression of our
best capacities and the highest thrusts of life, tempered by intelligence and wisdom.
Through reflecting on the broad historical tendencies of humanity to better our
condition, a notion of rights aids in establishing both a foundation for secular reason, and
also provides a means to connecting the constellation together in what purports to be a
universal conception of morality for humanity that is secular, but can also be adopted by
religions of any kind. In binding fundamental human good to a secularized morality that
universalises, we may arguably operate on deeper psychological and emotional levels
that promote or allow people to flourish, which we desire. It remains to be seen.
Here, I am hoping that articulating fundamentals of an alternative conception of
morality will serve to provide a basis for examination and discussion, and the minutiae of
details and of ethics as the study of morality will follow on that. Moreover, I wish to
emphasize that the foundations of morality I have tried to present be understood and
shared as a process and part of life, as differentiated from a “project” of heroic
proportions. Rather, it is intended to relate to, and appeal to the dignity and decency of
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people in a manner that resonates with them on many levels as knowledge that is
hopefully recognised as fundamentally “right” for all humanity. As well, it cannot go
unmentioned that people should also be unfailingly moral to themselves, as it is arguably
the case that many people unwittingly inflict pain and suffering on themselves. This
proposed conception of morality applies to all people. There can be no exceptions. No
people were born to exist to suffer, and should not.
In commending a conception of a universalising consensual secular morality and
a shift in moral paradigms, I would provide one final example and test of what is
proposed. If readers were to have their life judged for any reason, and were faced with
severe consequences or annihilation, and it appeared there was no absolution - which
conception of morality would they prefer to be judged by? Competing versions of
internally inconsistent theocentric morality? Or a legalistic morality that may have unjust
laws or could be instrumentalized by reason of a kind that may lack a full measure of
humanity? Or would readers prefer this secular and universalising conception anchored
to reason and the value and dignity of people found in human rights, to a life supporting
cornerstone of moral pillars, and an inarguable and irreducible ethical axiom combined
with individual responsibility that sees all people thinking and acting as moral and ethical
agents? For some this may be a difficult and challenging choice, for others, perhaps not.
Joseph Rotblat was fond of saying: “Remember your humanity and forget the rest.” 125
To this we can now add: “Remember everyone’s humanity and forget the rest.”
125
Milne, Sally. Personal correspondence. Ibid.
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Epilogue
Transitions
Articulating a universalising theory of secular morality intended to address 21st
Century moral concerns with growing populations, increased migration, greater inter-
cultural and social exposure, technological developments, and changing global
consciousness requires that the universalising morality be brought to people’s
awareness. It must be disseminated in age and culturally sensitive and appropriate
ways, and tested for its value by the response to it as broadly as possible. My initial
intention would be to plant a “seed” of new knowledge and hope for its uptake. Here, the
intention is not to “advance” a conception of a universalising morality as an authoritative
program. Instead, the shift of the paradigm is intended to occur by putting it on offer, and
if people recognize for themselves any intrinsic value it may have, they may hence
accept and adopt it of their own accord. With this important caveat noted, it does require
that the information be presented for people to have knowledge of it. In a globalized and
networked world, there are many possible ways to present the information.
One initiative and method would be to publish the principles and Declaration of
Responsibilities (the “universal secular morality” in toto) on the Internet (World Wide
Web and social media venues) to offer the information, and provide a feedback
mechanism that could be accurately or usefully assessed (insofar as any study in “social
sciences” can be.) As a research and delivery platform the Internet provides a relatively
low cost outreach to make the information accessible around the world to individuals
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who use this type of resource, and to get reactions, criticisms, or responses to it.
It could be published in a downloadable and redistributable form that introduces
the notion and explains its purpose in language that is accessible to all people, and then
to create and offer companion “instruction” guides that explicate how to access and
understand the material, and inform people how to implement it in understandable and
practical ways. Each principle and article of the declaration of responsibilities could be
examined and explained in plain language, with concrete examples as to how to
interpret, understand, and enact them.
Training and education would require two components: theoretical, and practical.
The theoretical would focus on the abstract elements and concepts of what is life, and
thence what is understood as life supporting, life enhancing, empathy, and compassion,
and so forth. The practical would seek to define useful examples to develop skills of
judgment of moral values and issues, life skills to assess conflict situations, negotiation
of moral deliberation, and synthesis of moral knowledge, etc., for a few examples. Here
it is important to note that this is intended as an experiential “learning-by-doing” model
that actively engages people in various learning models (e.g., moral literacy,
engagement/enactment exercises, and real-world experience.)
A second means to advancing and testing the proposal would be to design
educational materials and introduce them in educational settings: for example, secular
public schools, private elementary and senior secondary schools, colleges, universities,
and technical training institutes that have course content that might have moral
dimensions. Initial research efforts via public outreach or in educational institutions
90
would anticipate offering the information at the highest level of generality, and if interest
was seen to develop, it could become more detailed and specific according to audience
preferences and feedback, and demographic and financial considerations.
For any endeavour to compile empirical evidence there would be challenges in
assessing the qualitative results of audiences as measures of the appeal or success.
Quantitative results of numbers of participants, response surveys and opinion polls, their
ages and geo-locations etc., would be useful as measures of interest that would provide
data as to how best deliver the content according to the needs of varying populations. As
what purports to be a novel approach to understanding and teaching about morality, my
proposed research will provide information on best practices in content delivery
(pedagogy) in a range of classroom curriculum design, computer games, print or digital
media, educational software, social networking, and public forums or keynote speaking
to name a few. What is presented here is a tentative listing of possibilities, and I cannot
anticipate all the ways and means that people might be engaged by it, and with it.
Future Research and Interests
Beyond the completion of this work, I desire to continue engaging and creating
novel ideas and ways of investigating human concerns as these hold a great and
compelling appeal. My special interest in Peace remains a chief priority as that relates to
all other interests. Other endeavours would include continuing with advanced studies in
the humanities seeking to further develop new works that are in progress at the present,
pursuing research opportunities, or attempting to create new knowledge and original
works within the academic environment. Another possibility is to pursue other interests in
91
the humanities privately and perhaps to attempt to write books to market publicly that
have been on hold, and other projects such as productised information web sites.
I have several specific research and writing interests (that I have commenced)
that may admit of alternative approaches, methods, and understandings of human
consciousness. For example, one research interest is investigating and revealing ways
in which people from all parts of the world, and of differing beliefs and cultures can all
respond to abstract universal truths about their humanity, contingent on the type of
language that is used to convey them. This thesis assumes there is knowledge of a kind
that has the ability to bypass the cognitive structures and mental filters of mind, and
makes a direct appeal to deeper, central, and universal human capacities and knowing.
Initial informal investigations suggest an innate capacity for recognition of “universal”
forms of knowledge despite language barriers (with accurate translations), ideation,
levels of education, levels of intelligence, or other factors assumed to limit or restrict
access to fundamental human goods and knowledge.
I have a further interest in investigating the intriguing question “What is the
meaning of life”? A theory attendant to this question is that it is putatively the wrong
question in relation to what the question is intended to appeal to. A wrong question may
never result in a correct or satisfying answer, and it is possible that this has not been
investigated fruitfully. An alternative question and approach may provide the answer,
though obliquely, or from a different perspective and understanding.
Through investigating novel approaches to these enduring questions and
concerns, it may be possible to articulate a substantive justification for the arts and
92
humanities, which may serve to strengthen their presence in societies increasingly
focused on money, production, and technologies, but which eschew the spiritual and
emotional needs of humanity at large. It is arguably true that the arts and humanities
remain an important need for people with the exponential increases in populations,
diaspora and cultural diffusion, technological advances, and the uncertainties of the
future. We have to ask what the future might be like if we ignore the spiritual for the
material, and whether there is a price to bear for ignoring this important aspect of our
humanity. It is surely worth examining and essaying this type of knowledge, and there is
no desire to turn away from doing so. There is nothing more interesting than the human
mind and consciousness.
93
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